Paramount polishes its musicals’ boogie shoes

Paramount has freshened up two of its most popular musicals for DVD release today: “Saturday Night Fever” and “Flashdance.”

Directed by John Badham, “Saturday Night Fever” made a movie superstar three decades ago out of John Travolta, then 23 and best known as the “cute” Sweathog on the ABC sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Perhaps no other film has captured the disco era with such vibrancy, style and even pathos. Travolta received an Oscar nomination for best actor -- he lost to Richard Dreyfuss for “The Goodbye Girl” -- and the disco soundtrack album, which featured the Bee Gees’ seminal “Stayin’ Alive,” became legend.

Travolta was too busy making his box-office hits “Wild Hogs” and “Hairspray” to be interviewed for this new edition, but there are plenty of reasons to get your boogie shoes on. There’s a look back at the disco era, a flashback to disco fashion, a dance instruction video and a dance challenge game.

Jennifer Beals was just a teenager when she was tapped to play a welder and exotic dancer who dreams of getting into ballet school in Adrian Lyne’s 1983 “Flashdance.” Though numerous critics panned the film, audiences turned out in droves. Not only did the film inspire fashions -- especially Beals’ collarless sweaters -- several of the songs hit the charts, including the Oscar-winning “Flashdance. . . What a Feeling” and the Oscar-nominated “Maniac.” After the film was released, it was revealed that in some of the more sophisticated dance sequences, Marine Jahan doubled for Beals. Beals, now 43, has appeared in about 50 films and is a star of Showtime’s “The L Word.”

The special-edition DVD features numerous mini-documentaries, including “The History of ‘Flashdance,’ ” “The Look of ‘Flashdance,’ ” “Flashdance: The Choreography” and “Flashdance: The Music and Songs.”

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susan.king@latimes.com