Overview: From the country that brought you Sharksploitation, Nunsploitation and Indiana Jonesploitation comes the white-suited subgenre that stayed alive for less than 18 months.

Severin Films is now struttingly proud to resurrect this trio of Italian Discosploitation classics, on disc for the first time ever: AMERICAN FEVER, starring Mircha Carven, Zora Kerova and co-written by George Eastman/Luigi Montefiori, boldly confronts a young man’s disco dreams.

The deliriously cheesy GREASE ROCK fearlessly blends comedy, action, drama, surreal dance-offs and non-stop music. And in the now-restored Complete Version of JOHN TRAVOLTO: THE FACE WITH 2 LEFT FEET, Giuseppe Spezia – who bears an uncanny resemblance to the American star – goofily pursues disco DJ Ilona Staller (aka adult star/politician Cicciolina) with a little help from his friends.

All three films in this collection have been scanned in 4K from their original camera negatives and include 5+ combined hours of Special Features plus a JOHN TRAVOLTO Bonus Soundtrack CD.

Blu-ray Verdict: First up is AMERICAN FEVER (1978), which is the very first Italian Discosploitation film, and is also the closest in tone to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, thanks in large part to its smart screenplay co-written by George Eastman/Luigi Montefiori (ANTHROPOPHAGOUS, ABSURD).

Mircha Carven (SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP, DEATH WILL HAVE YOUR EYES) stars as Tony, gas station attendant by day and king of the Rome discos at night. But Tony’s dreams of becoming a movie star in America are complicated by his best friend’s deepening debt to loan sharks, his growing relationship with an ambitious beauty (Zora Kerova of CANNIBAL FEROX and TERROR EXPRESS) and the cold-hearted realities of the Italian film industry.

Gianni Medici (FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD) co-stars in this surprisingly grim drama directed by Claudio Giorgi (A MAN FOR SALE), now scanned in 4K from the original camera negative for the first time ever.

American Fever, unlike the jokey image of Italian discosploitation, is actually a generally straight-faced drama that’s not even a blatant ripoff of SNF as much as it’s inspired by then-contemporary American movies about Italian-Americans. Instead of Travolta’s Tony Manero, we’ve got Mircha Carven (S.S. EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP) as Tony Ferrante, who works at a gas station by day and parties at the disco by night, but his dream is to break into movies and go to Hollywood.

His ill-equipped partner in this dream is his loser friend Dino (Vincenzo Crocitti), a struggling screenwriter who owes money all over Rome and is in serious debt with loan sharks, which leads to him landing dubious day gigs for Tony, including as a stuntman on a western, and later, the lead in a porno.

Tony also finds time for romance with aspiring actress Lisa (CANNIBAL FEROX’s Zora Kerova), helping her go from suicidal girlfriend of a mobster to someone with whom to share his dreams of stardom. They do a lot of dancing at the disco (get ready to hear Spotlight’s title track about 78 times, along with multiple refrains of La Bionda’s One for You, One for Me, recently unearthed for the closing credits of THE BRUTALIST), and while AMERICAN FEVER clearly isn’t on the level of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, it at least tries to do its own thing.

It also might be of interest for some insights into the inner workings of Italian knockoff cinema at the time, particularly the sequence where Tony’s hanging around the western set (likely the input of co-writer Luigi Montefiori/George Eastman), and the conversations between Tony and Dino about the importance of American movies, even name-checking MEAN STREETS and ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, of all things, and Tony’s got ROCKY and SERPICO posters on his bedroom wall, plus his breakfast consists of guzzling raw eggs just like Rocky.

Along next is GREASE ROCK (1979). In his first and only film, Monty Ray Garrison delivers a star-making performance as Robbie, a goofy yet charming rogue who loves his sidecar motorcycle, hair grease, and disco. But when he meets a high-class American (Auretta Gay of ZOMBIE fame in her screen debut), he’ll pursue her through a polyester odyssey of tight outfits, insane dance-offs, rival gangs, car chases, J&B, a disco cover version of ‘Satisfaction’ and the big King & Queen of Rock Contest.

Fiamma Maglione (EATEN ALIVE!) and pop star Cecilia Buonocore co-star in this defiantly WTF? mash-up directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini (MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY, A MAN CALLED MAGNUM) and featuring wall-to-wall music by Gianfranco Reverberi (THE REINCARNATION OF ISABEL, DELIRIUM), now scanned in 4K from the original camera negative for the first time ever.

Grease Rock obviously invokes GREASE but is the kind of logic-be-damned Euro oddity where would-be Travolta Robbie (one-and-done Monty Ray Garrison) is constantly at odds with dance rival Rick (Mimmo Bua), with things always getting heated enough that impromptu performative dance-offs keep erupting between their crews, looking not unlike that SNL sketch spoofing WEST SIDE STORY where Norm Macdonald’s confused gang member keeps asking What the hell was that? when people finish singing and dancing. Robbie and Rick also fight over visiting American Cindy (ZOMBIE’s Auretta Gay), with Robbie oblivious to his friend Sandra (Italian pop star Cecilia Buonocore) being the one all along.

The thing is Robbie’s kind of an irresponsible dick. He can’t hold down a job, trashes his brother-in-law’s car, and callously blows off Sandra throughout. Plus, the smirking Garrison (dubbed by Steven Luotto, the voice of Trash in 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) looks more like the skeezy love child of Nick Stahl and Willem Dafoe than he does John Travolta. But GREASE ROCK, directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini (A MAN CALLED MAGNUM, MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY), is reasonably fun, with enough head-scratching goofiness that you’ll never be bored. And the producers actually sprung for a legit chart-topper on the soundtrack, with John Paul Young’s 1978 hit Love Is in the Air playing over the opening and closing credits.

The final film in this spectacular box set is JOHN TRAVOLTO: THE FACE WITH 2 LEFT FEET (1979). The most infamous Italian Discosploitation film of all is “everything you would imagine such a thing to be” (Dangerous Minds) and then some: In his sole leading role, Guiseppe Spezia stars as clumsy wallflower Gianni who spends his nights at ‘John’s Fever’ hopelessly in love with the club’s beautiful DJ (adult film star/Parliamentarian Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina).

But after his friends give him a complete makeover, Gianni becomes a dead-ringer for a certain American movie star who just might win the heart of a disco queen. Massimo Vanni (RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR), Sonia Viviani (NIGHTMARE CITY) and Angelo Infanti (THE GODFATHER) co-star in this “treasure of Travoltasploitation” (Cinetarium) directed by Neri Parenti (FRACCHIA VS. DRACULA) from a screenplay by Giovanni Simonelli (A CAT IN THE BRAIN, JUNGLE RAIDERS) and Oscar® nominee Massimo Franciosa (THE FOUR DAYS OF NAPLES, SPASMO), now scanned in 4K from the original negative for the first time ever with a Bonus Soundtrack CD.

Special Features:
American Fever
Audio Commentary With Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson And Howard S. Berger
All About The Music: The Birth Of Disco And The Road To Italy’s AMERICAN FEVER – Interview With Alan Jones, Author Of Discomania: Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them
Trailer

Grease Rock
Audio Commentary With Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson And Eugenio Ercolani
Brillantina Is The Word – Interview With Alan Jones, Author Of Discomania: Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them
Trailer

John Travolto: The Face With 2 Left Feet
Audio Commentary With Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson, Eugenio Ercolani And Howard S. Berger
The Show Is Over: JOHN TRAVOLTO And The End Of The Disco Film – Interview With Alan Jones, Author Of Discomania: Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them
U.S. Trailer
Italian Trailer
Bonus Disc: Soundtrack CD

Official Purchase Link