Thank God It's Friday
Brief Synopsis
Show biz hopefuls flock to the local disco in pursuit of their dreams.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Robert Klane
Director
Jeff Goldblum
Donna Summer
Judith Brown
Christine Delisle
Ray Vitte
Film Details
MPAA Rating
Genre
Musical
Release Date
1978
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 29m
Sound
Stereo
Color
Color (Metrocolor)
Synopsis
On a Friday night, everyone in town is going to the popular new disco. If Floyd arrives with the instruments as promised, then The Commodore's will be playing. Nicole is going to fulfill her dream of becoming a disco star, some are going to try to win the evening's dance contest, and others are going to celebrate for a fifth anniversary there.
Cast
Jeff Goldblum
Donna Summer
Judith Brown
Christine Delisle
Ray Vitte
Heidi Gold
Sandra Will
Howard Itzkowitz
Jacqueline Carlin
Linda Creamans
John Freidrich
J W Bear Martin
Steven Hartley
Michael Durrell
Tony Cacciotti
Paul Jabara
Valerie Landsburg
Sherry Peterson
Mews Small
Wade Collings
Vaya Warren
Sheila Mackenzie
Al Fann
Voice
Debra Winger
Mark Lonow
Hilary Beane
Chuck Sacci
Andrea Howard
Solomon Karriem
Nicholas Shields
Robin Menken
Chick Vennera
Gregory V Karliss
Dewayne Jessie
Macintyre Dixon
Jonathan Wynne
Terri Nunn
Shelly Parson
Harry Gold
Nanci Hammond
Marianne Bunch
Phil Adams
Cosie Costa
Osko Karaghossian
Crew
Phil Adams
Stunt Coordinator
Benjie Bancroft
Stunts
Pete Bellotte
Song
Henri Belolo
Song
Armyan Bernstein
Screenplay
Harry Betts
Music Arranger
Larry Blackmon
Song
Neil Bogart
Executive Producer
Pattie Brooks
Song Performer
G C Cameron
Song Performer
Wynn Cochran
Production Coordinator
Rob Cohen
Producer
Alec R Constandinos
Song
Alec R Costandinos
Song Performer
Alec R Costandinos
Song
Bill Couch
Stunts
James A. Crabe
Director Of Photography
Don Daniels
Song
Bud Davis
Stunts
Gary Charles Davis
Stunts
Hal Davis
Song
Pam Davis
Song
J M Descarano
Song
Joanne Divito
Choreographer
Lauren Shuler Donner
Associate Producer
Santa Esmeralda
Song Performer
Joe Esposito
Song
Bob Esty
Song
Wayne Fitzgerald
Titles
Les Fresholtz
Sound
Serge Gainsbourg
Song
Stephen Gautier
Makeup
Phillip M Goldfarb
Production Manager
Phillip M Goldfarb
Coproducer
Cuba Gooding Sr.
Song Performer
Bobby Guttadaro
Music
Jeff Haley
Set Decorator
Richard Halsey
Editor
Nanci Hammond
Choreographer
Russ Hessey
Special Effects
Frank Holgate
Photography
Thelma Houston
Song Performer
Mark Hurwitz
Production Assistant
Willie Hutch
Song
Paul Jabara
Song Performer
Paul Jabara
Song
Tom H John
Production Designer
Greg Johnson
Song
Holly Johnson
Song
Betsy Jones
Costumes
W King
Song
John R Lampkin
Consultant
R Lapread
Song
D C Larue
Song
William R Lasky
Assistant Director
Erma Levin
Sound Editor
Bob Masino
Stunts
Tony Masters
Associate Producer
T Mcclary
Song
Johnny Melfi
Song
Michael Minkler
Sound
Rich Montesano
Music
Bennie Moore
Stunts
Jacques Morali
Song
Giorgio Moroder
Song Performer
Giorgio Moroder
Song
Terry Nichols
Stunts
W Orange
Song
Al Overton Jr.
Sound
Jean-claude Petit
Song
Arthur Piantadosi
Sound
Art Posey
Song
Josef Powell
Song
Don Pulford
Stunts
Lionel Richie
Song
Ernest Robinson
Stunts
Diana Ross
Song Performer
Glen Sanford
Production Assistant
Sam Shaw
Sound Effects
Lauren Shuler Donner
Associate Producer
Lawrence Silverman
Lighting
Marc Paul Simon
Music Coordinator
N Skorsky
Song
Manny Slali
Music
Michael Lee Smith
Song
Sabrina Sousson
Song
Simon Sousson
Song
Dick St Nicklaus
Song
Kenneth Stover
Song
Bruce Sudano
Song
Donna Summer
Song
Donna Summer
Song Performer
B Sutton
Song
Michael Sutton
Song
Kathy Wakefield
Song
Rock Walker
Stunts
Harold Wheeler
Song
Darrell L White
Set Designer
P Whitehead
Song
M Williams
Song
Victor Willis
Song
Arthur Wright
Song
Charles Ziarko
Assistant Director
Dick Ziker
Stunts
Film Details
MPAA Rating
Genre
Musical
Release Date
1978
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 29m
Sound
Stereo
Color
Color (Metrocolor)
Award Wins
Best Song
1978
Articles
Thank God It's Friday
Born LaDonna Andrea Gaines on New Year's Eve 1948, the former church singer left the Boston suburb of Dorchester at the age of 18 to join the European tour of Hair. Settling in Munich and marrying an Austrian actor (whose surname Sommer inspired her stage name), Summer enjoyed modest gains with her first album, recorded in the Netherlands. While singing backup for Three Dog Night, she made the acquaintance of Giorgio Moroder, who produced the European version of "Love to Love You, Baby" and was hired by Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart to adapt the song for American ears. Summer had two more successful albums to her credit when she was approached to appear in Thank God, It's Friday and perform the Paul Jabara-penned "Last Dance," which earned both the Golden Globe and Academy Award® for "Best Original Song" after it charted at no. 2 on Billboard's "Top 100."
Made for $2 million and change, Thank God, It's Friday tripled its investment without ever coming close to being the box office juggernaut that Saturday Night Fever had been. Casablanca Filmworks seems to have anticipated its modest returns by keeping expenditures small and putting the production in the hands of untested but energetic talent. Filming took place in Osko Karaghassian's labyrinthine discotheque Osko's in Beverly Hills, which boasted no less than four dance floors. Directing the script by freshman screenwriter Armyan Bernstein was Robert Klane. As a fledgling writer, Klane had sold his first novel a decade earlier while slaving as a Madison Avenue ad man. Klane adapted his second novel for the motion picture Where's Poppa? (1970), directed by Carl Reiner. In the ensuing years, Klane wrote several episodes of M*A*S*H and created a number of TV series that never went beyond the pilot stage; Rosenthal and Jones was a bald-faced reworking of The Odd Couple formula with a Jew and a black man sharing close quarters. (Klane would later direct The Odd Couple's belated sequel, The Odd Couple: Together Again, 1993.)
Armyan "Army" Bernstein (first husband of Kate Capshaw, aka Mrs. Steven Spielberg) was a Chicago native whose next script was set in The Windy City. Francis Ford Coppola changed the setting to Las Vegas when he bought the property, which became the troubled but stylish One from the Heart (1982). Bernstein directed two independent films in the 1980s but is best known as the founder of Beacon Films and as the producer of such blockbusters as The Commitments (1991), Air Force One (1997) and Children of Men (2006).
Surrounding Donna Summer's pivotal but all together brief cameo in Thank God, It's Friday is a supporting cast of jobbing actors and rising stars. Apart from its utility as a music industry footnote, the film marks an early lead performance for actor Jeff Goldblum. Four years out from his debut as "Freak #1" in Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974), Goldblum was notable albeit briefly glimpsed in the ensembles of Robert Altman (Nashville [1975], California Split [1974]), Paul Mazursky (Next Stop, Greenwich Village, 1976) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, 1977) and had contributed a wry supporting role to Joan Micklin Silver's Between the Lines (1977) which anticipated his breakout performance in Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983). Thank God, It's Friday also provided an early paycheck for Ohio-born, Oklahoma-raised actress Debra Winger, who had previously appeared as the kid sister of Wonder Woman for ABC. Winger's big break was still in the wings, as John Travolta's costar in Urban Cowboy (1980), a role rejected by Sissy Spacek. While a few of the cast of Thank God, It's Friday have gone on to bigger and better things and others (Valerie Landsburg, Chick Vennera and Terri Nunn, who scored hit singles with the New Wave band Berlin) have continued quietly plying their trade, some came to tragic ends. Paul Jabara, who plays the myopic nebbish Carl and took home the "Best Original Song" Oscar® for "Last Dance," died of complications from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 44. Ray Vitte, cast here as DJ Bobby Speed, suffered a string of career disappointments post-Thank God, It's Friday. He had inherited the "Mother" role from Bill Cosby for ABC's failed Mother, Juggs & Speed series and was a regular on the Stephen J. Cannell-produced The Quest, which was cancelled after only four episodes. After suffering what seemed to be a psychotic breakdown that lasted for eleven hours inside his Studio City apartment, Vitte died in police custody on February 20, 1983. He was 33 years old.
Producer: Rob Cohen
Director: Robert Klane
Screenplay: Barry Armyan Bernstein
Cinematography: James Crabe
Film Editing: Richard Halsey
Cast: Valerie Landsburg (Frannie), Terri Nunn (Jeannie), Chick Vennera (Marv Gomez), Donna Summer (Nicole Sims), Ray Vitte (Bobby Speed), Mark Lonow (Dave), Andrea Howard (Sue), Jeff Goldblum (Tony Di Marco), Robin Menken (Maddy), Debra Winger (Jennifer), John Friedrich (Ken), Paul Jabara (Carl), Marya Small (Jackie), Chuck Sacci (Gus Micola), Hilary Beane (Shirley), Otis Day (Floyd), The Commodores (Themselves)
C-89m.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Ordinary Girl: The Journey by Donna Sommer and Marc Eliot
"Forgotten Authors: Robert Klane" by Christopher Fowler, The Independent, February 2009
Adventures on Prime Time: The Television Programs of Stephen J. Cannell by Robert J. Thompson
"Raymond Vitte, 33, an Actor, Dies After Scuffle With Police," New York Times, February 22, 1983
Thank God It's Friday
However it may have been kicked into production gear by the success of John Badham's Saturday Night Fever (1977) and the vogue for disco-themed entertainment off the dance floor as well as on (a passing popular fancy whose perniciousness explains the short-lived ABC-TV sitcom Makin' It), the Casablanca Filmworks release Thank God, It's Friday (1978) is stylistically closer kin to Grand Hotel (1932) or International House (1933) for its crush of disparate and desperate characters convening for one night in a common setting where miscommunication, mischief and mishaps flourish. Made in partnership with Motown Records (which had previously backed the Diana Ross vehicles Lady Sings the Blues [1972], Mahogany [1975] and The Wiz [1978]), the film was a bid to get silver screen time for such clients as The Commodores and Donna Summer, whose seventeen-minute "Love to Love You, Baby" was an early disco smash. Summer's audible approximation of sexual ecstasy within the context of the track earned her the nickname "The First Lady of Love."
Born LaDonna Andrea Gaines on New Year's Eve 1948, the former church singer left the Boston suburb of Dorchester at the age of 18 to join the European tour of Hair. Settling in Munich and marrying an Austrian actor (whose surname Sommer inspired her stage name), Summer enjoyed modest gains with her first album, recorded in the Netherlands. While singing backup for Three Dog Night, she made the acquaintance of Giorgio Moroder, who produced the European version of "Love to Love You, Baby" and was hired by Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart to adapt the song for American ears. Summer had two more successful albums to her credit when she was approached to appear in Thank God, It's Friday and perform the Paul Jabara-penned "Last Dance," which earned both the Golden Globe and Academy Award® for "Best Original Song" after it charted at no. 2 on Billboard's "Top 100."
Made for $2 million and change, Thank God, It's Friday tripled its investment without ever coming close to being the box office juggernaut that Saturday Night Fever had been. Casablanca Filmworks seems to have anticipated its modest returns by keeping expenditures small and putting the production in the hands of untested but energetic talent. Filming took place in Osko Karaghassian's labyrinthine discotheque Osko's in Beverly Hills, which boasted no less than four dance floors. Directing the script by freshman screenwriter Armyan Bernstein was Robert Klane. As a fledgling writer, Klane had sold his first novel a decade earlier while slaving as a Madison Avenue ad man. Klane adapted his second novel for the motion picture Where's Poppa? (1970), directed by Carl Reiner. In the ensuing years, Klane wrote several episodes of M*A*S*H and created a number of TV series that never went beyond the pilot stage; Rosenthal and Jones was a bald-faced reworking of The Odd Couple formula with a Jew and a black man sharing close quarters. (Klane would later direct The Odd Couple's belated sequel, The Odd Couple: Together Again, 1993.)
Armyan "Army" Bernstein (first husband of Kate Capshaw, aka Mrs. Steven Spielberg) was a Chicago native whose next script was set in The Windy City. Francis Ford Coppola changed the setting to Las Vegas when he bought the property, which became the troubled but stylish One from the Heart (1982). Bernstein directed two independent films in the 1980s but is best known as the founder of Beacon Films and as the producer of such blockbusters as The Commitments (1991), Air Force One (1997) and Children of Men (2006).
Surrounding Donna Summer's pivotal but all together brief cameo in Thank God, It's Friday is a supporting cast of jobbing actors and rising stars. Apart from its utility as a music industry footnote, the film marks an early lead performance for actor Jeff Goldblum. Four years out from his debut as "Freak #1" in Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974), Goldblum was notable albeit briefly glimpsed in the ensembles of Robert Altman (Nashville [1975], California Split [1974]), Paul Mazursky (Next Stop, Greenwich Village, 1976) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, 1977) and had contributed a wry supporting role to Joan Micklin Silver's Between the Lines (1977) which anticipated his breakout performance in Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983). Thank God, It's Friday also provided an early paycheck for Ohio-born, Oklahoma-raised actress Debra Winger, who had previously appeared as the kid sister of Wonder Woman for ABC. Winger's big break was still in the wings, as John Travolta's costar in Urban Cowboy (1980), a role rejected by Sissy Spacek. While a few of the cast of Thank God, It's Friday have gone on to bigger and better things and others (Valerie Landsburg, Chick Vennera and Terri Nunn, who scored hit singles with the New Wave band Berlin) have continued quietly plying their trade, some came to tragic ends. Paul Jabara, who plays the myopic nebbish Carl and took home the "Best Original Song" Oscar® for "Last Dance," died of complications from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 44. Ray Vitte, cast here as DJ Bobby Speed, suffered a string of career disappointments post-Thank God, It's Friday. He had inherited the "Mother" role from Bill Cosby for ABC's failed Mother, Juggs & Speed series and was a regular on the Stephen J. Cannell-produced The Quest, which was cancelled after only four episodes. After suffering what seemed to be a psychotic breakdown that lasted for eleven hours inside his Studio City apartment, Vitte died in police custody on February 20, 1983. He was 33 years old.
Producer: Rob Cohen
Director: Robert Klane
Screenplay: Barry Armyan Bernstein
Cinematography: James Crabe
Film Editing: Richard Halsey
Cast: Valerie Landsburg (Frannie), Terri Nunn (Jeannie), Chick Vennera (Marv Gomez), Donna Summer (Nicole Sims), Ray Vitte (Bobby Speed), Mark Lonow (Dave), Andrea Howard (Sue), Jeff Goldblum (Tony Di Marco), Robin Menken (Maddy), Debra Winger (Jennifer), John Friedrich (Ken), Paul Jabara (Carl), Marya Small (Jackie), Chuck Sacci (Gus Micola), Hilary Beane (Shirley), Otis Day (Floyd), The Commodores (Themselves)
C-89m.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Ordinary Girl: The Journey by Donna Sommer and Marc Eliot
"Forgotten Authors: Robert Klane" by Christopher Fowler, The Independent, February 2009
Adventures on Prime Time: The Television Programs of Stephen J. Cannell by Robert J. Thompson
"Raymond Vitte, 33, an Actor, Dies After Scuffle With Police," New York Times, February 22, 1983
Quotes
Hey listen man. When I, Bobby Speed, promises his audience live music, he delivers.- Bobby Speed
You'd better, turkey, or you'll be back at the supermarket announcin' specials!- Sam
Dave, it's good for us to experience new things. We have to reach out together, be more open to things.- Sue
Oh God, you've been reading Cosmopolitan again.- Dave
Here. Put this on.- Carl
What is this?- Ken
Lip gloss. Makes you look hot.- Carl
Sick.- Ken
Now the absolute proof of creephood does he come in a friend's car. Oh, come on.- Maddy
Maddy, Maddy, you came in my car.- Jennifer
That's different.- Maddy
If she can experience, I can experience.- Dave
You always stand like that?- Dave
Only when I feel my energy being drained. Standing on one leg doesn't allow the energy complete flow. You can lose it in the floor. Would you like to dance?- Jackie
Well, uh ...- Dave
Yes! You would.- Jackie
Yeah, O.K.- Dave
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1978
Released in United States 1978