The film “Saturday Night” came out this year with a wide release by Sony Pictures on Oct. 11.
It stars Gabriel LaBelle as the creator and producer of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels, and Rachel Sennott, who played Michaels’ wife, Rosie Shuster.
Dylan O’Brien and Matt Wood played the iconic Blues Brothers duo Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, and Cory Michael Smith played the first Weekend Update anchor, Chevy Chase.
The movie also stars Ella Hunt, Emily Fairn, Kim Matula, Lamorne Morris, Andrew Barth Feldman, and Cooper Hoffman, who play Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Neil Levy, and Dick Ebersol, respectively. And Nicholas Braun, who played both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson.
The movie “Saturday Night” shows how the writers are stoned and complaining about censorship, the set is a complete mess, not complete, and falling apart, the actors are physically assaulting each other, the crew is in open revolt and leaving, and they only have 90 minutes to get their act together before the network pulls the plug.
The movie takes place on Oct. 11, 1975, at 11:30 p.m. and revolves around the behind-the-scenes of the 90 minutes leading up to the first Saturday Night Live broadcast. It portrays the ensuing chaos that follows the young upstart writers and comedians.
Overall, I really loved this movie. I especially loved the portrayals of Aykroyd, Belushi, and Chase. Obviously, when making a movie, it will never be completely accurate, and the director must add more drama to it. It was funny, it was serious, and it gave this anticipation.
It brought some of the most Iconic original sketches from the first season, like Aykroyd’s iconic Hard Hats sketch, Andy Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse, Belushi and O’Donoghue’s Wolverines, and Chevy Chase’s first Weekend Update, to life again.
There were so many different stories and actions taking place that it never got boring or too confusing.
The little attention to detail that not many would notice was amazing.
The fact is that it was not only the actors who had to step into these intimidating roles but the extras as well.
Jason Reitman, the director, wanted the set to be as accurate, so they had to rebuild it on how it looked in 1975.
All the cameras that were from that era were real, and the extras had to learn how to use them again. The crew had to learn these jobs that were cool to learn about. I loved the attention the actors put into their roles; they didn’t want to overdo it.
This movie relates a lot to mass media; it took a bunch of kids in their 20s who were trying to make a name for themselves and change comedy and television in the span of one night.
They were communicating to the world something never done before, like new entertainment, comedy, and worldwide news.
In the movie, one of the media-related issues is that Tommy Dewey, who played Michael O’Donoghue, was at odds with a church woman determined to censor any offensive sketch. There was an association that did exist in censoring inappropriate language, and it was something the writers had to deal with.
SNL was part of a revolution for television in the ‘70s. Another example was Hoffman’s portrayal of Dick Ebersol, where he in the movie would walk through the set and tell the young actors to do product placements of the Polaroid as it would benefit them. Although in real life, this was not the case, in the movie, he does and upsets Michaels and his cast.
One of the main stories in this movie was the NBC Brass being impressed with Chase and how they are almost ready to pull the plug on the show. These executives have the power to change his life, and Chevy Chase would become the first SNL breakout star.
Overall, these young upstarts ripped out the television from the older generation and molded it into their own.
And 50 years, they are still saying, “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night!”