Product Description

Donna Summer stars in this disco-musical from 1978. Following a dance contest at the local disco, THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY features early performances by Debra Winger and Jeff Goldblum. Musical support comes from Summer (singing "Last Dance") and the Commodores.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19200 in DVD
• Brand: ADAMS,PHIL
• Released on: 2006-04-04
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 89 minutes

Amazon.com
An unusual collision of the innocent and the decadent, Thank God It's Friday captures the disco era in all of its naive glory. Multiple storylines twine through an enormous nightclub: Two underage girls (one of them Terri Nunn, future lead singer of new wave rock group Berlin) desperately want in so they can enter a dance contest; the club's owner (Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, The Fly) makes a bet with his dj that he can woo a beautiful married woman--whose uptight husband ends up taking drugs and loosening up more than he ever expected; a klutzy girl (Debra Winger, Terms of Endearment, in one of her first film roles) gets ditched by her best friend and flounders around the club looking for love; and an aspiring singer (Donna Summer, whose "Last Dance" won the Academy Award for Best Song) pleads with the dj to let her sing. Though not as richly written as American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused, Thank God It's Friday aspires to a similar meandering mix of melancholy and hope. It ends up being a pretty honest snapshot of the disco era: Sweet, shallow, and not as campy as you'd expect. For all the sex and drugs, in the end it's all about getting your groove on. As one character puts it, "Dancing--Everything else is bulls**t!" --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

The Last Dance of the Disco Era
THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY was released just as the disco craze crested, when anything and everything might happen during a night on the town, when sex was casual, and drink and drugs were still regarded in a lighthearted manner, and music wailed and blared with the likes of Gloria Gaynor and K.C. & the Sunshine Band. Within a few years Disco would be publically declared dead--but it still lives on in the recordings... and in Donna Summer's penultimate screen image of the Disco Diva, shimmering in the spotlight beneath the mirror ball with a hibiscus tucked into her hair as she belts out her megaton hit, "Last Dance."

TGIF is best regarded as a cultural artifact, an attempt to show everything that was shiny about the Disco world without any reference to its down sides of sexually transmitted diseases, next-morning-hangovers, and serious drug addictions. The story is slight: a disco is hosting a big dance contest, and every one arrives at the door with personal ambitions. There is, of course, the singer who hopes to hit it big; two underage teen girls hot to be Disco Queens; a sweet young thing who hates polyester and is looking for Mr. Right in the wrong place; and a ladykiller looking to score his next victim. The film is most memorable for the look of the disco, which is the real star of the film, and the cast, which includes several performers on their way up: Jeff Goldblum as the lady killer; Deborah Winger as the anti-polyester good girl; and of all people a very, very young Terri Nunn, who would later score big as the front singer for the band Berlin.

There are all the usual running gags, and as a whole the film is only mildly entertaining. But then Donna Summer steps into the spotlight--and for a few moments everything that was magic about Disco lives and breathes again. For what it is--an incredibly light, mindless bit of tinsel--the film is well done, but it has an extremely limited appeal for a contemporary audience. Unless you were actually part of the disco scene and want to revisit old memories, you're better off catching it on the late-late show. But my oh my... wasn't Donna Summer something special!

It may have been the way the designer meant the dress to be worn but...
...it's not the way the director meant the movie to be seen. Once again the studios have dupped the DVD buying public. This DVD version of the film is not a true widescreen of the movie (meaning as it was shown in theaters during its initial release). It is nothing more than a pan and scan version (full screen version that has been edited to fit a normal analog TV) that has been cropped at the top and the bottom. I began to notice something was askew and got out my well worn and well loved VHS edition and began to compare. (Yes, I love this cheesey movie) Well, to my suprise I was right! When are the studios gonna stop taking the cheap route and begin NOT to dupe the public. This really angers me. I have been waiting to see the movie in all its "glory". "Sony"/"Colmbia" has really lost their integrity with me and I'm sure a few others. What's with the cheap DVD edition -- no extra's -- not even a chapter index. NOT EVEN A PROPER DVD MENU! Generic garbage!Yes the DVD is in high definition (great picture and sound). Yes the price was great. Yes we finally have it on DVD. But I for one want to see the movies I buy in all their spender whather it be an "A" list movie or this one. It is a fond memory and a moment out of my past that was the best time in my life. Shame on "Sony" -- full of baloney.Shame on "Columbia" as well.Movie: ****DVD: *Sony/Columbia: zip! nada!

Where's the DVD
It's the 25th anniversary of the films' debut and I believe that it's high time for a special edition DVD to be released. I've noticed that "Saturday Night Fever" and that terrible movie "Can't Stop the Music" have already been released on DVD, so why not TGIF? Get with it Columbia!