Xana-Dude

December 26, 2007

Robert Ahrens went to the place where nobody dared to go…and made “Xanadu” on Broadway a reality. As the driving force and one of the producers of the camptastic Broadway hit musical, Ahrens believed in magic and nothing could stand in his way. (That’s a lyrical reference to the Olivia Newton John song “Magic” and if you don’t get it, I feel sorry for you).

I first met Ahrens, a one-time investment baker and film producer (WTC View), after a revival screening of “Xanadu” the movie here in LA in 2005. It happened to be my birthday that weekend so invited all my friends to celebrate my b-day and the wonder of “Xanadu” at the same time. After the screening, we adjourned to Chevy’s across the street for birthday cake and fellowshipping. Ahrens ended up there thanks to a mutual friend of ours. At the time, the producer was already on the way to making “Xanadu” on Broadway a reality. I remember him telling me about it and me being excited about it but also thinking, ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’

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"Fever" Blisters...30 Years Later

December 13, 2007

So two Tuesdays ago I’m at my first day of jury duty, thumbing through the L.A. Times and being a good citizen by praying I don’t get picked for a panel when I happen upon an article in the Calendar section about a special 30th anniversary screening of “Saturday Night Fever” with the cast in attendance that was happening that very night in Beverly Hills.

I may have audibly gasped. How had I not heard of this before? Saturday Night Fever was one of the films I wrote about in Screening Party and of the twenty or so movies in the book, it’s my favorite. (Glitter was a close second). And I’ve never seen it on the big screen, let alone a brand new print at the posh Academy Theater with Travolta and Pescow and all the Faces in attendance. This was not to be missed.

So I called the box office number the second I was excused from jury service—I didn’t get called, yippee!—and the tickets are sold out. I decided to show up anyway. I waited outside for about an hour—watching a “Mad Men” episode on my Ipod (I’m obsessed with that show but that’s another blog). I caught a break when an older gentleman showed up with two extra tickets. I bought one off him lickety split. I outwitted the other folks in the stand-by line by having my money out and ready. It’s a technique that also gets good reactions from go-go boys.

It wasn’t until I got to my seat that I noticed the name on the ticket is Robert Evans, as in the legendary “Kid Stays in the Picture” producer Robert Evans. He did work at Paramount and “Fever” was a Paramount picture. The guy I bought the ticket from didn’t look like Evans but I was so focused on the ticket itself I didn’t really pay attention to the seller. Let’s just say it was Evans, shall we? I thought, ‘This is going to be a magic night.’ (Alas, there were no photos allowed at the event…but I did scan in my program and I also have a photo of me in my “Fever” T-shirt so you know my love is real)

So I took a seat in the second row and suddenly, my friend Tony C. comes up and surprises me. I thought I would have to experience the “Fever” magic on my own, but I didn’t--I had a friend there who loves the nightlife and has to boogie as much as I do. I sat with Tony C. and his friends.

The lights go down and the film starts. It looks and sounds amazing, first of all, thanks to the state of the art theater and the brand new print. And the movie’s just great, so real and poignant and alive. In terms of the way it tells its story, it’s like a little indie art film…that accidentally became a blockbuster.

And it has one of the best ‘Getting Ready’ scenes in movie history. When Travolta zips up his dusty rose Sansabelt disco slacks over his crotch, I lose my mind every time. I audibly sighed in the Academy Theater.

My friend Brett is obsessed with Getting Ready scenes and we’ve spent several lunches recalling our favorites. He says he likes the better than the party scenes that usually follow because as a pre-teen he remembers so looking forward to the ritual of getting ready for an event. Getting ready scenes are all about the right music, the right accessories and lots of close ups of various articles of clothing being put on. Tony Manero is as good at getting ready to go dancing as he is at dancing.

So the movie ends and Newsweek film critic David Ansen takes to stage and introduces the cast in attendance starting with John Travolta. Travolta gets ushered in from the back by like five crowd control people. It seemed a little excessive, but I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to give Travolta a standing ovation in person for one of my favorite performances ever. He’s so spectacular and touching in that movie.

You know that questionnaire on the last page of Vanity Fair where they ask people what fictional character they most relate to. I think I would say Tony Manero because his motivations come from this place inside him that have nothing to do with his fucked-up family or his crazy environment. He has this yearning in his heart for something better and he tries to follow it. That’s kind of how I felt growing up. I like his empathy, too. He can be a total chauvinist dick sometimes but he’s sensitive and he feels things deeply and Travolta captured that inner life spectacularly.

2007 Travolta seemed truly touched by the crowd response and really proud of the film. “I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart,” he said, adding that he was able to separate himself from the movie for the first time and be impacted by it as a viewer.

He said that at the time, he had no idea that “Fever” would become a phenomenon. “I thought I was doing a little art film,” he said, “a little slice of life.” Then he explained that before “Fever”, he had been offered Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven,” but had to turn it down because of “Welcome Back, Kotter.” In his mind, “Fever” was his replacement for the arty “Days of Heaven.”

When asked about some of Tony’s more unlikable moments, Travolta said, “I never worried about being unsympathetic.” Then he and Ansen spoke about how studios in the 70s weren’t so obsessed with having “likable” characters that tested well. The studios were less afraid of giving audiences characters that actually resembled real people.

Ansen and Travolta chatted for a while and then the rest of the cast were introduced: Joseph Cali (Joey), Barry Miller (Bobby C), Paul Pape (Double J) and Donna Pescow (Annette) along with the film editor David Rawlings and Executive Producer Kevin McCormick. “They’ve all aged beautifully,” Travolta said. “They took care of themselves. I’m proud of them.”

It felt so historic, having them all together there for the first time in 30 years, but the panel also a bit frustrating for me because the usually on it Ansen wasn’t really asking great questions—or that many of them. I was squirming in my seat because I had a million topics I wanted to raise…or at least a handful. I wanted to ask Donna Pescow how women talk to her about the movie. Her character, Annette, is kind of pathetic in some ways but I bet a lot of young women related to her. She goes through so much in the film; rape, witnessing a suicide, being passed over for Karen Lyn Gorney, and some of it’s pretty difficult to watch. I wanted to hear about all that stuff.

I wanted to know what the cast thought when the PG version came out a few months after the R version. Does anyone else remember that? It must have been about 15 minutes long.

At one point, Ansen commended the editor, David Rawlins, on the cutting of the dance scenes…but if Ansen had watched the “Behind the Music” special or read the current making-of article in the Vanity Fair Movies Rock supplement, he would have known that Travolta wasn’t happy with the original cut of his big number to “You Should Be Dancin’.” The actor actually got permission from producer Robert Stigwood to go into the editing room and recut it himself. I wanted to know how Rawlins felt about that. I did notice that he was the one person on stage that Travolta didn’t embrace when they were all brought up.

Some interesting tidbits did come up during the panel, though. Here are the ones I scrawled on the back of my program:

• Barry Miller talked about being inspired by Sal Mineo’s performance in “Rebel Without a Cause” when creating the character of Bobby C, the hapless kid who doesn’t want to marry his pregnant girlfriend and who idolizes Tony Manero. Miller said he knew Mineo a bit personally and recalled that before “Fever” came along, they did a radio show together and Mineo said that he had a feeling that his performance in Rebel would somehow “live on” in Miller. “I held that inside me during the shoot,” Miller told the crowd, adding that he often ‘bugged’ Travolta on set by bringing up his affection for “Rebel.”

• Executive Producer Kevin McCormick recalled how Paramount’s then head Michael Eisner was furious about the crude language after the first preview, which was held in the Midwest somewhere--Kansas maybe? Wherever city it was, the other big event in town that weekend was the Campus Crusade for Christ. (I know which venue I would have picked that night if I was a local.) To appease Eisner, producer Robert Stigwood took two ‘fucks’ out of the movie and left the rest as is. I assume when McCormick related that anecdote “fucks” was referring to language and not actual acts of intercourse.

• Travolta says he spent seven to nine months rehearsing for the dance scenes, three to eight hours a day. It sure paid off on screen but doesn’t that seem like a lot of time? Compared to how far Jenny Garth came in 12 weeks, that seems like a lot. Of course, his triumph is that he makes it seem so natural.

• One of the things that struck me about the film this time around was how great the script was, how specific and authentic the dialogue was and how fully realized Tony’s world was. The screenwriter was the late Norman Wexler and Travolta recalled how passionate he was about the project. I got the feeling Wexler was an intense fellow, maybe a little nutty. Travolta said he used to get calls in the middle of the night from Wexler long after the film had wrapped and come out.

• The smoke on the dance floor was done for the movie. Discos didn’t really do smoke on the floors until after they saw it in “Fever.”

• The cast tended to stay in character all day long. Donna Pescow recalled going out with all the guys to a pizza joint for lunch one day and they were all just as rude and shitty to her as their characters were in the movie. Good times for Annette.

The tagline for “Fever” on the poster is ‘Where do you go when the record is over?’ Well, we went to Norm’s diner on LaCienega because you can get a five-course meal for like $7.95. All in all, it was one of those only-in-L.A. nights that happen every once in a while to remind you why you put up with the traffic and the Hollywood hustle. I get excited inside just thinking about it.