Grease (film)

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Grease
File:Grease.jpg
2002 DVD cover of Grease
Directed byRandal Kleiser
Written byBronte Woodard (screenplay)
Allan Carr (adaptation)
(based on the musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey)
Produced byAllan Carr & Robert Stigwood
StarringJohn Travolta
Olivia Newton-John
Stockard Channing
Jeff Conaway
Didi Conn
CinematographyBill Butler
Edited byJohn F. Burnett
Music byJohn Farrar
Barry Gibb
Louis St. Louis & others
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
June 16, 1978 (original release)
March 27, 1998 (re-release)
Running time
110 minutes
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUSD $6,000,000 (estimated)

Grease (1978) is a film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's musical, Grease. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Jeff Conaway and Stockard Channing. It was originally released to theatres in the U.S. on June 16, 1978. It was released in the U.S. on VHS during the 1980s; the latest VHS release was June 23, 1998 as 20th Anniversary Edition. On September 24, 2002, it was released on DVD for the first time. On September 19, 2006, it was re-released on DVD as the Rockin' Rydell Edition, which includes a black Rydell High T-Bird jacket cover.

In 2006, Grease was ranked #20 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.(Source: "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals")

Tagline: Grease is the word.
Tagline: Grease is still the word. (1998 re-release)

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler In the summer of 1959, Danny Zuko (Travolta), a member of Rydell High School's boy gang the T-Birds in the United States, meets Sandy Olsson (Newton-John), an innocent girl from Australia, at the beach and they fall in love. When autumn nears, Sandy tells him she must return to Australia.

However, Sandy's plans are changed and she ends up attending Rydell High. She quickly makes friends with Frenchy, a beauty-obsessed member of girls' gang, The Pink Ladies, who introduces her to the other members of the gang – Rizzo, Jan and Marty. As yet, Danny and Sandy are unaware of each other's presence at school, but both are egged on by their friends to tell the story of their summer holiday romance (Summer Nights).

Sandy, egged on by school prissy cheerleader Patty Simcox, joins the Rydell cheerleaders, where Rizzo and the Pink Ladies plan to reunite her with Danny. They carry out their plan, but Danny, being in the presence of his gang of lads, the T-Birds, is forced to play it cool for the sake of his image, and Sandy feels insulted and angrily leaves. Finding Sandy crying, Frenchy manages to cheer her up and invites her to a pyjama party at her house with the other girls. But things go wrong when Sandy throws up at the first sight of blood after Frenchy attempts to pierce her ears. Rizzo attacks Sandy for her "goody goody" image (Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee). Eventually, the T-Birds turn up outside Frenchy's house, Rizzo leaves the party, and after getting rid of the other T-Birds, she and Kenickie canoodle passionately in the back seat of his new car, but are interrupted by Leo, leader of the T-Birds' rival gang The Scorpions, bangs Kenickie's car's fender.

While having the car repaired, Danny, Kenickie, and the T-birds imagine the car after a paint job and a tune-up (Grease Lightning) and how it will attract the ladies and be the fastest car around. Afterwards, at the local teen hangout spot "The Frosty Palace" Danny tries to rekindle things with Sandy, only to find out she's dating the school's star football player. Danny is inspired to make a change and become a jock, although none of the competitive sports other than track seem to suit him. After seeing Danny trying to impress her, Sandy and Danny seem to make up and decide to go to the school dance together, which will be filmed on TV's "National Bandstand".

Sandy and Danny seem happy, but Danny is apparently still ashamed of being seen with Sandy in front of his friends. One night at The Frosty Palace, Sandy and Danny's date is interrupted by the whole gang joining them. Frenchy has dropped out of school and gone to a local beauty college, Pink Lady Jan and T-Bird Putzi ask each other to the dance, and Rizzo and Kenickie have a loud, almost whimsical break-up – which climaxes with Rizzo throwing her milkshake straight into Kenickie's face! Eventually, at closing time, only Frenchy is left, with a waitress for company. Frenchy confesses that she dropped out of Beauty School because she had a hard time, and is advised by a dreamy teen angel to go back to high school (Beauty School Dropout).

At the school dance off, the atmosphere is exciting as Rydell is about to be broadcast on live TV. Rizzo, in order to spite Kenickie, arrives at the dance with Leo, and Kenickie, having the same motives in mind, shows up with Leo's girlfriend Cha-Cha who proclaims she is "the best dancer at St. Bernadette's with the worst reputation!" Meanwhile, Pink Lady Marty catches the eye of the slick TV host Vince Fontaine, with whom she flirts. Soon, the dance contest begins (Hand Jive). Frenchy and Doody are the first contestants eliminated, followed soon by Rizzo and Leo (presumably for doing "vulgar movements"). Kenickie and Cha-Cha seem to be doing well, as well as Danny and Sandy. At one point, it seems that Danny and Sandy have the contest won, until a drunk T-Bird, Sonny, pulls Sandy away and Cha-Cha sees a window of opportunity to win the contest with Danny, which happens. Sandy, upset, leaves the dance, as does Rizzo, seeing Cha-Cha with Kenickie. At the end of the night, the T-Birds moon the cameras during a slow dance, causing huge eruptions of laughter.

A few days later at a drive-in, Danny is out with Sandy, who still seems resentful after what happened at the dance. Danny asks Sandy to wear his school ring, and she seems to forgive him. But soon Danny tries to make-out with Sandy, and she tosses the ring back at him and storms out of the drive-in. Danny laments about how much really wants Sandy (Sandy). At the same time, Rizzo tells Marty she is pregnant. When Kenickie finds out about Rizzo, he thinks the baby is his, but Rizzo says it's not, and Kenickie, obviously disturbed, walks away. Rizzo seems saddened herself.

Towards the end of the school year, Kenickie prepares his car for racing at "Thunder Road" against Leo and the Scorpions. Kenickie asks Danny to be his "second man' during the race. Sandy, meanwhile wants to talk to Danny, but Rizzo tells her to forget him. Rizzo herself obviously wants Kenickie back (The Worst Thing I Can Do) and feels vulnerable. She is the only Pink Lady who won't attend the Thunder Road race. Kenickie, at Thunder Road, receives an accidental blow to the head while prepping for the race and is unable to drive, so Danny takes over. Leo, at the last minute, proposes that the winner gets the loser's car. Danny accepts and the race begins. After some dirty play on Leo's part and some destruction to Kenickie's car, Danny wins the race. It's then revealed Sandy's been watching from a nearby wall. Frenchy wonders why she's so down. Sandy knows she would do anything to have Danny (Goodbye to Sandra Dee) and asks Frenchy to help her.

At the end-of-the-year carnival, Rizzo proudly tells Kenickie that she isn't pregnant after all, and they make up on the Ferris Wheel. Danny reveals to the T-Birds that he's gotten an athletic letter in track and he did it all for Sandy to be impressed. Ironically, this is where Sandy comes in with The Pink Ladies, dressed in a sexy black off-the shoulder top and sporting permed hair, smoking a cigarette. Danny is awed and tosses his letterman sweater on the ground (You're The One That I Want). With the whole gang unites, Jan asks "What'll happen after graduation?" The group decides that they will always be friends (We Go Together). The students receive their yearbooks, and Danny and Sandy ride off into the sunset in the newly-redone Grease Lightning as everyone else waves goodbye.

Template:Endspoilers

Casting

Singer Olivia Newton-John had done little acting before this film, and was terrified of the idea of playing a lead role in a film musical. The more experienced John Travolta (who was also a singer) was very supportive; occasionally when Newton-John made a mistake during filming, he would make it look like it was his fault and take the blame for it.

Two actors who were seen for the film were Henry Winkler and Marie Osmond. Winkler, who was playing Fonzie on Happy Days (1974), was originally chosen to play Danny but didn't for fear of being typecast. Osmond turned down the role of Sandy because she didn't like the fact that Sandy had to "turn bad" to get the boy. Adult film star Harry Reems was originally signed to play Coach Calhoun. Producers got cold feet weeks before filming and replaced him with Sid Caesar.

Dinah Manoff passed her audition without being given a singing or dancing tryout. Her skills in those areas proved limited, so she was moved into the background during the song numbers.

Differences from stage play

The original stage play had more sexual references than the MPAA would allow under a PG rating. In the original stage play, there was references to using plastic wrap as a condom, which had to be removed. To overcome the censors, there weren't any blatant references to this, but Danny briefly rubs plastic wrap over his crotch during "Grease Lightning".[1]

Several musical numbers were not used in the film. They appear, however, as jukebox tunes, or band numbers at the high school dance. Among them: "Freddy, My Love", "Those Magic Changes", and "It's Raining on Prom Night" all of which were performed by characters in the stage musical (however, Danny does sing along with the band for a few lines of "Those Magic Changes"). "Grease Lightning" was supposed to be sung by Jeff Conaway's character, Kenickie, as it is in the stage version. John Travolta used his clout to have his character sing it. The director felt it was only right to ask Conaway if it was okay. At first he refused, but he eventually gave in. Also, one of the characters in the stage play, Roger, is named Putzie in the movie version.

Olivia Newton-John's producer John Farrar wrote two new songs for the movie version: "Hopelessly Devoted To You" and "You're The One That I Want."

In the musical, Sandy is American and her last name is Dumbrowski. Since Newton-John couldn't affect an American accent, her character was changed to an Australian transfer student and her last name was changed to Olsson.

Reception

Although Travolta was already famous from the movie Saturday Night Fever, Grease reconfirmed his status as a superstar. Newton-John's fame also reached new heights after the movie released. The movie received five Golden Globe Award nominations in 1979.

The movie's soundtrack was a number one album in many different countries. The song "You're The One That I Want" was released as a single prior to the film's release and became an immediate chart topper, despite not being in the stage show or having been seen in the film at that time.[2]In the United Kingdom, the two Travolta/Newton-John duets, "You're The One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" were both number one hits and appear 6th and 21st respectively in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002. The song "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was nominated for an Academy Award (1979) for Best Music - Original Song. The movie's title song was also a number one smash hit single for Frankie Valli.

Grease spawned a sequel, Grease 2 (1982) (with the only cast members from the original movie being Coach Calhoun, Eugene, Frenchy, the Scorpion's gang leader, and Miss McGee) that was much less successful. After the success of the original, Paramount intended to turn Grease into a multi-picture franchise with at least three sequels planned and a TV series in the pipeline. But when the first sequel, Grease 2, flopped at the box office, all the plans were scrapped.

Main Credits

Filmed in Panavision / Color by Metrocolor / Dolby System / 110min 24 sec / CinemaScope / Made in Hollywood

Cast

Starring

T-Birds

Pink Ladies

Special Guest Appearances (alphabetically)

featuring

and

Trivia

  • Randal Kleiser hated the opening title song, "Grease" (he thought that the cynical lyrics and disco beat were inappropriate for a film set in the 1950s) and the song "You're The One That I Want" saying it "sounded awful".
  • The school scenes in Grease were filmed at Venice High School and Huntington Park High School (except for the carnival scene, which filmed at John Marshall High School).
  • Danny's blue windbreaker at the beginning of the film was intended as a nod to Rebel Without a Cause (1955).
  • The scene in Frenchy's bedroom while Rizzo is singing the line about Elvis Presley was actually filmed the same day that Presley died.
  • The song "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" references Sal Mineo in the original stage version. Mineo was murdered a year before filming, so the line was changed to refer to Elvis instead. The Troy Donahue reference is in the original stage version.
  • The dance contest scene was filmed during the summer, when the school was closed. The gym had no air conditioning and the doors had to be kept closed to control lighting, so the building became stiflingly hot. On more than one occasion, an extra had to be taken out due to heat-related illness.
  • Choreographer Patricia Birch worked with Sha Na Na to ensure that the tempo of the dance contest would be correct. She appears, uncredited, as one of the dancers during the contest.
  • In the scene where the cast is near the bridge after the drag race, the water on the ground in the Los Angeles River basin was stagnant and dangerous. Some cast members became ill from filming as the setting was a derelict place full of dirt and rubbish.
  • "You're the One That I Want" took just one afternoon to film with the help of a traveling carnival. However, director Kleiser decided the next day that additional scenes were needed for close-ups. Unfortunately the carnival had packed up and left town, so set decorators were called in to build replica backgrounds that matched the carnival ride's construction for the close-ups.
  • Because of a zipper breaking, Olivia Newton-John had to be sewn into the pants she wears in the last sequence (the carnival at Rydell), and she couldn't get the pants off for 36 hours.
  • During the opening credits (at the end of the song "Grease"), the cop riding the motorcycle is actually John Travolta.
  • While the stage musical script was being adapted for the movie, Paramount Pictures toyed with the idea that Danny Zuko should be killed at the end of the "Thunder Road" scene. [citation needed]
  • Patricia Birch, the movie's choreographer, would go on to direct the ill-fated sequel. It would be the only movie that she would direct.
  • Long before the critics had a field day with the fact a lot of the characters looked much older than they were supposed to be, it was a running joke on the set that the characters were the “oldest teenagers in America”.
  • The Goodies parodied the film in their Saturday Night Grease episode.

Personal

Miscellaneous

Soundtrack album details 1978 RSO Records

Side 1

  1. Grease — Frankie Valli (3:23) (a)
  2. Summer Nights — John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John & Cast (3:36) (b) (d)
  3. Hopelessly Devoted to You — Olivia Newton-John (3:00) (c) (e)
  4. You're The One That I Want — John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (2:47) (c) (e)
  5. Sandy (Music by Louis St. Louis, Lyrics by Scott J. Simon) — John Travolta (2:30) (e)

Side 2

  1. Beauty School Dropout — Frankie Avalon (4:02) (b) (e)
  2. Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee — Stockard Channing (1:38) (b) (e)
  3. Greased Lightnin’ — John Travolta/Jeff Conaway (3:12) (b) (e)
  4. It’s Raining on Prom Night — Cindy Bullens (2:57) (b) (e)
  5. Alone at the Drive-In Movie (instrumental, see below for details) (2:22) (b) (d) (w)
  6. Blue Moon (Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart) — Sha Na Na (4:02) (e)

Side 3

  1. Rock n' Roll is Here To Stay (D. White) — Sha Na Na (2:00) (e)
  2. Those Magic Changes — Sha Na Na (2:15) (b) (e)
  3. Hound Dog (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) — Sha Na Na (1:23) (e)
  4. Born To Hand Jive — Sha Na Na (4:39) (b) (e)
  5. Tears On My Pillow (S. Bradford and A. Lewis) — Sha Na Na (2:06) (d)
  6. Mooning — Louis St. Louis and Cindy Bullens (2:12) (b) (e)

Side 4

  1. Freddy, My Love — Cindy Bullens (2:40) (b) (e)
  2. Rock n' Roll Party Queen — Louis St. Louis (2:08) (b) (e)
  3. There are Worse Things I Could Do — Stockard Channing (2:18) (b) (e) (w)
  4. Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee (Reprise) — Olivia Newton-John (1:20) (b) (d)
  5. We Go Together — John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John & Cast (3:14) (b) (e)
  6. Love Is A Many Splendored Thing (Sammy Fain and Francis Webster) (instrumental, see below for details) (2:22) (b) (e)
  7. Grease (Reprise) — Frankie Valli (3:23) (a)

Credits

Principal credits

Additional credits

Peter Frampton—lead guitar (a)
Ernie Watts—saxophone (w)
James Getzoff—concertmaster
Carl Fortina—contractor
Bob Borenstein—copyist
David J. Holman—engineer and mixing engineer
Jay Lewis—engineer
Eirik Wangberg—engineer
Michael Carneval—engineer
Albhy Galuten—producer (a)
Karl Richardson—producer and engineer (a)

Megan is awesome

References

  1. ^ VH1's "Behind the Music: Grease"
  2. ^ VH1's "Behind the Music: Grease"

See also

External links

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