STAYING ALIVE

Directed by Sylvester Stallone (Paramount)

by John Mendelssohn

By the time this reaches print, Sylvester Stallone's Staying Alive will be on display at the nabes for half the price that the chic and trendy and cinemaphilic paid to see it in midsummer, and you'll be tempted to take advantage of their lower ticket prices.

Resist temptation.

You know the story. One-time Brooklyn disco king Tony Manero (John Travolta), who appears to have spent every spare minute since we saw him last pumping iron, finally gets a job dancing in a Broadway musical. After finding himself unable to dump his sweet, insipid girlfriend (Cynthia Rhodes) for a castrating bitch who dances better (Finola Hughes), he winds up the Broadway musical's star.

One means, really.

Producer/director Sylvester Stallone and co-screenwriter Norman Wexler's dialog abounds in incontestably snappy repartee. For instance, one night on the verge of August, virtually everyone in (Grau)Mann's Chinese Theatre (the one with Stallone's misspelled autograph in cement out in front) laughed aloud when, after a rival for Rhode's affection demanded, "You All-State or something?" Travolta replied, "Yeah. Want disability?"

So far, so good, even though one occasionally gets the impression that whole scenes—such as the one in which a woman at the disco where he's a waiter tells Tony, "Guys like you are exercise"—exist for no other reason than to provide a context for such, uh, zingers.

If only the snappy banter weren't the only dialog in the film that works. In such pivotal scenes as the one in which the director of Tony's musical berates him for blaming his frustrations on others, it could hardly ring more false—we've been given no reason to believe that the director knows thing one about Tony Manero the person. All of a sudden, he's chastising him for such flaws of character as. having failed to recognize that Hughes's Laura, supreme bitch that she is, could have been the best thing that ever happened to him if only he hadn't tried to change her. One means, really.

There is so much disbelief to suspend in this clamorous fairy tale of a film, and so little time. As Tony entered the bar in which the Cynthia Rhodes character was singing about her broken heart, every recording session in Manhattan must have ceased, for all of the digital delay on the island is on her voice. And at film's end, we're to believe that Tony would sooner saunter through Times Square to the strains of an ancient disco hit than guzzle champagne with the rest of the cast or chat with his mother (exquisitely played once again by Julie Bovasso), who's come all the way from darkest Brooklyn to witness his finest hour. One means, really.

But the greatest suspension of disbelief demanded of us is the most fundamental one—we're supposed to believe that John Travolta dances well enough not only to be hired for the chorus of a Broadway musical, but to usurp its male lead role after one evening's heavy rehearsal. One means, really. However charismatic his, uh, screen presence and however much Stallone tried to help him out in the editing room, there can be no mistaking that, when it comes to hoofing, our hero's nobody's pro. There are moments when he looks positively clumsy.

We pause here to note internationally acclaimed dance critic Lewis Segal's suggestion that the speed of cutting in a film of this sort might bear an inverse ratio to the prowess of the dancer involved. He reminds us of the scarcity of cuts in Mikhail Baryshnikov's dance sequences in The Turning Point.

The most banal of influences— network television—is everywhere. Twice Stallone asks us to be amused by the Hughes character impatiently sighing, "Whatever," when Tony tells her that his name isn't Jimmy. It would be a lot easier for us to comply if Archie Bunker didn't leap inexorably to mind.

Elsewhere, the first time Laura snubs Tony, we suddenly find ourselves looking at her in such extreme close-up as to wonder if that zany Sly has slipped in footage from 60 Minutes, whose camerapersons demonstrate weekly how anyone can be made to appear devious and contemptible by zooming in tight enough to count the little hairs between his or her eyebrows.

When it comes to being manipulated, though, we ain't seen nothin' yet, or at least nothin' that compares to what happens right after Tony wows 'em in his second stab at snatching his musical's lead role, and the music goes from loud to deafening, from up-tempo to upper-tempo. What a cheap way to get the audience exhilarated, and what an utterly predictable one, in view of Stallone's having used it in both of the latter Rocky's after duly noting how wonderfully it worked in the one he didn't direct.

In reviewing Saturday Night Fever and Crease, many reviewers marveled at the fact that, whenever Travolta was on screen, it was impossible to keep your eyes off him. In closing, it ought to be noted that, however great his charisma, and however gorgeous his blue peepers, it's impossible, when the camera pulls in too tight on him, to keep your eyes off anything but that preposterous dimple in the center of his chin.

Reviewing A Book To Be Clever

THE FIRST KISS: A TEENAGER'S GUIDE TO THE GENTLE ART OF KISSING

by Keidre S. Laiken (Perigree Books)

Anybody out there nervous about kissing? Afraid you'll do it wrong? Afraid you'll be so good you'll be conscripted by the Lip Service? Afraid you'll drool? Or that you'll be a parent any nine months now? By the way: do you know how many sickeningly ugly green germs live in the human mouth? Or even Billy Joel's mouth??

Set those fears aside. The First Kiss can be your oral guru for a trivial buck-ninety-five. (It costs more in Canada, but that's only because it's so much harder to find someone worth kissing in Canada.) This isn't too steep if you happen to be sitting next to Morgan Fairchild right now.

But is it "a complete guide to kissing?" Or just a Be-Mine Baedeker for your "first kiss experience?" It's both. The comprehensive tome answers practically every question you so-so smoochers might ask. Not only that, it doesn't laugh at you.. .at least, not out loud. "Although your lips are moist, you won't drown in a kiss," Ms. Laiken sez, tongue in your cheek. Too late to tell Natalie Wood, though. Nevertheless, TFK's an important book, on a par with pages dealing with Batman's influence on American history.

What we all want to know is: can this book help us? What, are we kidding? These pages are neck-andneck with Simon & Garfunkel tours in the great Make-Sense-A-Thon. Consider the following: "How do you know who is the right person to kiss?" You ask a friendly policeman, right? "What if you're not sure the

person you want to kiss wants to be kissed?" Well, then you die and go to Purgatory. "Where do you go from here?" Easy! Rape, disgrace, the gallows! And then you've gotta clip out Ann Landers's lecture on teenage alcoholism and carry it in your wallet.

Given the great need for kissing literature, TFK falls just short of superb. Granted, it answers the continually-puzzling "Do Eskimos kiss by rubbing their noses?" (Yes; but they also take pulses with their ears).. .on the other hand, it doesn't even mention the "Can I kiss you there?" issue that so plagues modern youth. I mean, Eskimos, great...I'm more worried about there.

What to do? Offhand, I'd say spring for the book and learn what you can ("Is it OK to french kiss on the first date? That depends. " Yeah, it depends on the current state of arms negotiations, phase of Venus and what's good on cable TV. Well, what can you say to an author who warns: "Don't let sloppy kissing put a damper on your fun!" I won't; I promise.)

And—if you learn nothing—who cares? I wouldn't go out with you anyway.

J. Kordosh

The Good The Bad And The Godawful

Here it is Saturday night. I'm trapped in the Bronx visiting the folks and we're not hooked up to cable. No MTV! I mean, what's a girl of reasonable intelligence to do? I opt for a side trip to the master bedroom to watch Solid Cold.

I'd bet even money that around the country many other rock-starved, over-the-hill teenagers are making the same decision. Sure, we know in advance it's going to be rotten and we're gonna find things to make us mad, but what are the choices during prime time? Even now that the networks are starting to feel the video crunch, they're continuing to program their rock shows for insomniacs and night watchmen. The best thing about Solid Cold is that it's there.

I'm sure if I tried to look objectively at '60s music television I'd have to admit that Solid Gold and Hullaballoo have a great deal in common. Today's sexploitation by the Solid Gold Dancers is no different than the miniskirted girls in their little cages. And when you're barfing at Marilyn McCoo's heart rendering version of the latest from Styx, or Rex Smith singing Journey's current chart topper, reflect, if you will, on Lola Falana singing "The Sounds Of Silence" and Jonathan King trying his hand at "Wooly Bully."

The difference of course is that as adults (responsible or not) we know that TV is capable of better now, and for some reason Solid Gold has chosen to stay in the dark ages of music television. In its defense, it is the only music program to successfully blend Top 10 with dance music, black and country, but the staging is impossible, the lighting is horrendous and Billy Idol singing with the Solid Gold Dancers is totally ridiculous.

With Andy Gibb and Dionne Warwick already part of Solid Cold's ancient history, we are left with Rex Smith and Marilyn McCoo, whose duties include announcing the guests, singing duets with relics such as Barry Manilow and joking with Madame. Madame! How could we forget her? Her jokes are older and less funny than Joan Rivers and, although watching stars chat with the Muppets is cute, even endearing, seeing Ms. McCoo sitting head to head with Madame catching up on the latest gossip (all dirty) is offensive. So, why do we watch it? Mass surveys say that young boys and bored husbands like to watch the Solid Gold Dancers writhe on the floor on the verge of orgasmic ecstasy. I guess the rest of us are willing to put up with the garbage for a sight of Exene singing "Breathless" on prime time TV, or an excuse for not sitting through Two On The Town or TJ Hooker.

I mean, sure, I'd rather see Shindig re-runs.. .wouldn't we all? But until that time I guess it's just me, Rex, Marilyn, Madame and the Solid Gold Dancers.

Janis Schacht