{"id":2625,"date":"2024-08-21T15:10:17","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T15:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:29:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:29:38","slug":"thank-god-its-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/21\/thank-god-its-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank God It\u2019s Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thank God It\u2019s Friday <\/strong>(1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Armyan Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Giorgio Moroder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematographer: James Crabe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 19, 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Valerie Landsburg, Terri Nunn, Chick Vennera, Donna Summer, Ray Vitte, Mark Lonow, Andrea Howard, Jeff Goldblum, Robin Menken, Debra Winger, John Friedrich, Paul Jabara, Marya Small, Chuck Sacci, Hilary Beane, DeWayne Jessie (Otis Day), The Commodores.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $7.3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ah, the disco craze of the 70s! I remember it well despite being nowhere near old enough to legally set foot in a discotheque. The trend was reflected everywhere from the music on the radio to the wild fashions worn by dance-crazy teens to the disco classes for middle-agers at the local Y. It didn\u2019t take Hollywood long to latch onto the craze with Saturday Night Fever, the definitive movie of the disco era. It was soon followed by imitators like Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong>, a dopey comedy set over the course of a single night at an L.A. discotheque called The Zoo where the staff wears animal costumes and a guy dressed like Tarzan swings from a vine over the dance floor. It\u2019s not exactly Studio 54, but it still seems to do decent business.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Robert Klane (Weekend at Bernie\u2019s II), Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong> is best described as Saturday Night Fever meets American Graffiti without the depth of character of the former or the pathos of the latter. It\u2019s a mindless little comedy that moves to a disco beat. There\u2019s no actual plot. Instead, it has multiple plotlines. It follows a group of colorful characters on the night of the big dance contest where The Commodores are set to perform provided their instruments arrive in time. Their roadie Floyd (Jessie, Animal House) is having a hell of a time getting to the place. He\u2019s lost and keeps getting pulled over by police demanding proof he didn\u2019t steal the instruments. This means unloading and playing them as onlookers gather. This is just one of several story threads.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I suppose the best place to start is Bobby Speed (Vitte, Car Wash), the club\u2019s star DJ doing his first live broadcast. In addition to the whole mess with The Commodores (playing themselves), he must also contend with clumsy aspiring disco singer Nicole (disco queen Summer) looking for her first big break. He has a bet going with womanizing club owner Tony (Goldblum, The Big Chill) over whether he can successfully seduce a female patron. That would be Sue (Howard, The Nude Bomb), a suburban housewife celebrating her fifth anniversary with her husband Dave (Lonow, The Last Married Couple in America), an uptight accountant who doesn\u2019t want to be there. When Sue falls prey to Tony\u2019s oily charm, Dave retaliates by picking up Jackie (Small, One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest), a zany disco freak who renames him \u201cBabbakazoo\u201d after drugging him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Two teens, Frannie (Landsburg, TV\u2019s Fame) and Jeannie (future Berlin lead singer Nunn), repeatedly try to sneak into the club for the contest. They finally succeed with the help of Marv (Vennera, High Risk), a self-described \u201cleather guy\u201d and king of the dance floor. Extremely near-sighted Carl (Jabara, Honky Tonk Freeway) and his mild-mannered friend Ken (Friedrich, The Final Terror) are there to meet girls. Jennifer (Winger, An Officer and a Gentleman) and Maddy (Menken, Body Rock) are there to meet guys. Finally, an angry little guy named Gus (Sacci, The Choirboys) is infuriated when he discovers his computer-matched blind date Shirley (Beane, Zapped!) is a foot taller than him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In its defense, Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong> is easy to take. Sure, it\u2019s dumb and pointless. It\u2019s also kind of fun in the right frame of mind. Not all of the jokes land, but some of it is quite amusing. One of the better running jokes is the punishment Tony\u2019s prized car (a 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera) takes in the parking lot. Everybody keeps hitting it. Foul-tempered Gus is good for a few chuckles. Then there\u2019s Marv, a fellow who can only be described as a jokey Tony Manero clone. He\u2019s so ridiculous and non-threatening that you have to like him. He\u2019s the only one who gets a sustained dance number as well. The scene where he dances and flips on car roofs in the parking lot is great; it\u2019s one of the movie\u2019s best scenes. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s worthy of Fred Astaire if Fred did disco.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The thing about movies like Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong> is that people were expected to go right out and buy the soundtracks. At the time, I didn\u2019t know a single person who didn\u2019t have a copy of either the Saturday Night Fever and\/or Grease soundtrack (I had both). I didn\u2019t own the Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong> soundtrack, but I sure knew some of the tunes. Donna Summer won an Oscar for \u201cLast Dance\u201d, a number she performs right before The Commodores do \u201cToo Hot to Trot\u201d in the climax. Other than the title song by Love & Kisses and the two I mentioned, there aren\u2019t a whole lot of memorable songs. It\u2019s a decent soundtrack, it\u2019s just mostly forgettable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Should I even comment on the acting? It hardly seems necessary. It\u2019s cool seeing actors like Goldblum and Winger early in their careers. It\u2019s also cool seeing familiar faces like Friedrich and Beane. I liked seeing a young pre-Berlin Terri Nunn. Ms. Summer proves that she\u2019s better at singing than acting. She\u2019s pretty self-conscious here. Vitte commands the dance floor and the movie as the DJ who literally holds the world in his hands, a point made abundantly clear by his booth\u2019s design. Most of the characters are likable, what else is there to say.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While disposable, Thank God It\u2019s Friday<\/strong> makes for decent entertainment if you\u2019re not looking to tax your brain. It\u2019s the kind of silly comedy you can watch with your brain shut off. And you can dance to it too.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank God It\u2019s Friday (1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Klane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Armyan Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Giorgio Moroder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematographer: James Crabe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 19, 1978 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Valerie Landsburg, Terri Nunn, Chick Vennera, Donna Summer, Ray Vitte, Mark Lonow, Andrea Howard, Jeff Goldblum, Robin Menken, Debra Winger, John Friedrich, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Thank-God-Its-Friday-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3500,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions\/3500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}