URBAN COWBOY [1980]

After a few small roles on Broadway, a couple of horror films, some bit parts on TV shows, a few commercials and a couple of TV movies, John Travolta finally became a breakout star when he first appeared as Vincent "Vinnie" Barbarino on TV's Welcome Back, Kotter in 1975. This led to starring roles in three pop culture shaping films, almost back to back to back: 1977's Saturday Night Fever, 1978's Grease and 1980's Urban Cowboy. After the success of Fever, Travolta cut his television contract short and began making films full-time, appearing as a Special Guest Star on Kotter to serve out his time. Producer Robert Stigwood had signed Travolta to a three-picture deal, the first of which was Saturday Night Fever. The second picture was Moment By Moment, a May-December romance flop with Lily Tomlin, which is one of the few motion pictures of modern times (let's say since 1976) never to be issued on any home video format although it pops up occasionally on cable. The third Stigwood picture was Grease which HERC covered a few weeks back.

The first film John Travolta made after the end of his contract with Stigwood was Urban Cowboy. Described as a "country version of Saturday Night Fever", the script was originally written with Dennis Quaid in mind for the lead role of Buford Uling Davis aka "Bud" before Travolta was cast. Producers chose Michelle Pfieffer for the role of "Sissy" before Sissy Spacek signed on for the part. Spacek had appeared in the 1976 adaption of Stephen King's Carrie as the title character with Travolta in a smaller role. Reunited on the set of Urban Cowboy, the two actors could not get along and Spacek was let go. Debra Winger was brought in to play "Sissy" but sent away by the producers for not being "attractive" enough for the role. To his credit, Director James Bridges stood by his choice and threatened to leave the project if she wasn't reinstated. The producers relented and Winger came back and put her tomboyish charms and slight physical attributes on the screen as a positive role model for young girls everywhere, showing them not every leading actress has to look like a Barbie doll. While HERC cannot recommend this movie due to the domestic violence depicted, he enjoys the soundtrack a whole heck of a lot.

For his role as "Bud", Travolta grew a beard and installed a mechanical bull for companionship in his home before filming began. Patrick Swayze was brought in to teach him how to do the two-step and both Swayze's wife and his mother choreographed the dance scenes in the movie. The beard only lasted a few days into shooting: While at lunch one day off the set, Travolta was not asked for a single autograph. Fearing he was too unrecognizable, he shaved it off the very next day. When it came time to film his scenes on the mechanical bull, Travolta was so adept that his stunt double was not used. The film shot around Houston, Texas, a few miles from where HERC spent many of his summers, in the Summer of 1979. Released in June 1980, it was well received by critics and made nearly $47 million at the box office, restoring Travolta's reputation as a leading draw after the disastrous Moment By Moment. 

Just as Saturday Night Fever had brought the rituals of disco to the world, Urban Cowboy brought country fashion and line-dancing to the masses. On HERC's first day of high school in the Fall of 1980, many of his former classmates from eighth grade - both male and female - showed up in Urban Cowboy-inspired attire. They stood out like sore thumbs among the real cowboys, the kids who lived and worked on family farms in the surrounding counties and had to spend up to two hours a day on a bus just to get to and from school. Both films used their double-disc soundtrack albums to spread their word. True country music fans, the real Wrangler-wearing cowboys, and oil refinery workers, might have protested that the songs were not authentic but that was beside the point - the music drew people to see the movie and then to visit the dance clubs and honky-tonks like Gilley's, which burned down in 1990 shortly after Mickey Gilley and his co-owner had a falling out and closed it down. Today Gilley's lives on with a club in Dallas and one at the Treasure Island resort in Las Vegas.

Trying to top Robert Stigwood's double-disc soundtrack trifecta of Saturday Night Fever [1977], Grease [1978] and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [1978], the Urban Cowboy soundtrack was the first of three consecutive Irving Azoff supervised double-disc soundtrack productions - followed by Heavy Metal [1981] and Fast Times At Ridgemont High [1982] - and featured many artists he was managing at the time. Several of the album's artists appeared on-screen performing their respective songs. In a rare move, a second soundtrack album, Urban Cowboy II, was released nearly eight months after the first, containing more songs from the soundtrack. While the original soundtrack has been issued on compact disc, the second album has not.

In this edition of Soundtrack Sunday, Martin Maenza breaks down the film's soundtrack album, song by song.