'Thank God It's Friday' Press Kit

I was very fortunate that at the age of 15 that my parents owned a movie theatre and I became the projectionist, since I had an interest in films and movies.

When “Thank God It’s Friday” was released in 1978 we had a run of the movie at our theatre and this press kit was a part of the promotion of the disco film.

This movie played a big part in the success of disco music of the time. “Saturday Night Fever” was the forerunner, but besides the music by Bee Gees, Yvonne Elliman, The Trammps, etc. was not a “pro-disco” movie. It depicted disco music and discotheques more in a negative sense. I believe that “Thank God It’s Friday” was more of a light and fun experience in disco in the cinematic genre.

Here are a few pages from the theatrical press kit, which gives the studio (Columbia Pictures) ideas of promoting a disco film of the time. It was quite an event for disco to have such a soundtrack that of course yielded an Academy Award for Donna Summer and Paul Jabara for the now classic, “Last Dance”. There were many other disco powerhouse producers and artists involved in the soundtrack – including Bobby “DJ” Guttadaro who assisted in the soundtracks formation.

This press kit may be missing a few pieces on the pages, which were utilized for our theatre but I thought it was an interesting piece of “disco history”.

My parents allowed our theatre to add additional speakers to the lobby and in the theatre to blast the disco soundtrack and other disco music of the time to get mover goers into the mood during intermission – but at the time, not much was needed. The film was enough.

NOTE: To enlarge each scanned page be sure to click on the link which reads the higher resolution of each page - any porblems, please contact me.