Travolta/Cage #3: Saturday Night Fever/Racing with the Moon (with Andrew Jupin)

This week on Travolta/Cage, We Hate Movies’ Andrew Jupin clears the dance floor to help Nathan and Clint through a groovy double feature of Saturday Night Fever and Racing with the Moon!

In Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta grooves and twists his hips through his first big superstar role as Tony Manero, a blustering Noo Yawker who dreams of stardom and only gets a taste of it when he dances at the local nightclub. Everyone knows this one for its banging Bee Gees soundtrack and its groovin’ reinvigoration of disco as a trend, but it’s easy to forget that it’s also a grim, gritty take on ‘70s New York and the perils of toxic masculinity.

On the other hand, we’ve got Richard Benjamin’s Racing With the Moon, where Nic Cage plays third fiddle to Sean Penn and Elizabeth McGovern, the reckless best friend of Penn who gets the both of them into trouble as they spent their final weeks before leaving for war in small-town 1940s America. It’s a shockingly sweet and layered picture, with Cage eking out as much pathos as he can out of a character who, in any other movie, would have a big stinking ‘I’m Going to Die in the Second Act to Motivate the Protagonist’ sign on his back.

It’s an interesting double feature to be sure — one film is that star’s big breakout, the other a meaty supporting role in a pleasant, but otherwise obscure melodrama. But between both film’s tales of misspent youth (and a curious abortion subplot that crops up in each of them), there’s quite a lot to chew on between this pair of oft-underappreciated classics.

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