Grease on DVD - DVD Report

Translation from Dutch:

John Travolta: King Of The Seventies

Few careers have had such an erratic course as that of John Travolta. In the late seventies, he scored worldwide hits, but after a few flops, it seemed the curtain had fallen for good. However, thanks to a talking baby and a certain Quentin Tarantino, Travolta made a full comeback. Reason enough for a look back, especially now that Grease and Saturday Night Fever are finally being released on DVD.

With roles in films like Pulp Fiction, Face/Off, and Get Shorty, it is hard to imagine that John Travolta (1954) ever started out as a teen idol.

At the age of twenty-one, he broke through with the high school TV comedy Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). In it, he played Vinnie Barbarino, a character who already bore a striking resemblance to the hero of Travolta's second hit film, Grease.

The actor soon conquered America. I was in a shopping mall in Palm Springs to visit my sister, Travolta recalls, and suddenly a bunch of young people gathered around me asking for an autograph. That was in the third or fourth week of the series. Then I realized we had a hit on our hands.

Barely three years later, the rest of the world knew his name too, and Travolta's path in the cinema seemed definitively paved.

King Of 2001

Partly due to the world-famous soundtrack by The Bee Gees (You Should Be Dancing, Staying Alive, How Deep Is Your Love), Saturday Night Fever (1977) is often described as a dance film. Although this production indeed provides an excellent portrayal of the disco generation and features some outstanding dance scenes, that one-sided description does the film a disservice.

Saturday Night Fever revolves around the young Tony Manero (Travolta). In everyday life, he has a boring job in a paint shop, but on weekends he visits the discotheque 2001 with his friends, where he is the uncrowned king of the dance floor. Women want to kiss him (My God, I just kissed Al Pacinol) or more (Are you just as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?). With his personal groupie Annette as his partner, Tony enters a dance competition. But when his eye falls on the beautiful Stephanie, the poor girl is immediately dumped. In Stephanie, Tony sees a girl who knows what she wants and is also on her way to making it big. However, the death of a friend makes Tony realize just how one-dimensional his life is, and he decides to drastically change course.

Censorship

For Saturday Night Fever, Travolta immediately received an Oscar nomination. His portrayal of Tony Manero was not only stunningly real but also very brave, considering the character is not always sympathetic. For instance, he uses Annette, the girl who has been in love with him for years, as a personal slave, and the shy Joey is only part of his circle of friends because he has a car that Tony can borrow.

The film itself, dynamically directed by John Badham (Short Circuit, Blue Thunder, Wargames), does not shy away from any subject. In some television screenings, all sex and foul language have been removed, which does not benefit the overall picture of the milieu that Badham had initially sketched so well. Characteristic of Tony's world is the scene in which one of his friends has sex with a blond girl in the car. After the act, the boy gives her a hug and sighs: What did you say your name was?

Greased Lightning

In 2002, Travolta was able to firmly put his success of the late seventies into perspective: You didn't have that many stars back then, he says. There were fewer shows and fewer films then. If I turned down a film, the role went to Richard Gere (like with An Officer and a Gentleman and American Gigolo, ed.). If he didn't do it either, the whole production fell through.

Travolta's second film also exploded onto the scene. Grease (1978), based on the Broadway musical of the same name, was a commercial variation on Saturday Night Fever that bore a strong resemblance to Badham's film. For instance, dance and youth gangs once again played a major role in the story, the film depicted a youth culture (that of the fifties), and the whole thing was launched with a soundtrack featuring countless pop hits (You're the One That I Want, Summer Lovin', Greased Lightning). After the serious Saturday Night Fever, Travolta proved he could hold his own as a singer and comedian as well.

Stay Cool

In the opening scene of Grease, we see Danny Zuko (Travolta) and Sandy Olson (Olivia Newton-John) saying goodbye to each other after an intense summer romance. The vacation is over, and Sandy has to return to Australia.

However, after the opening credits, fate turns out to have other plans. Sandy's parents decide to stay in America, and coincidentally, the girl ends up at the same school as Danny. There, Danny proves not to be as innocent as he had pretended to be on the beach. As the leader of the T Birds gang, he is the epitome of toughness and finds it difficult to get involved with an innocent girl like Sandy.

Before the two fly into each other's arms, director Randal Kleiser (who would later also make The Blue Lagoon) has quite a lot in store for the audience: a car race, a dance competition, a makeover, and many scenes that we would now dismiss as music videos. That mix proved to work: to this day, Grease remains the most successful film musical ever released.

Nostalgia

If we view Grease through a modern lens, the story is predictable and the humor is outdated. Moreover the main characters must have failed at least ten times, because such old teenagers are rarely seen on the big screen. (Travolta was 24 at the time and Olivia Newton-John 29). The wrinkles in the close-ups shouldn't spoil the fun, however, because as a whole, Grease presents itself as a pleasant bubble in which one can delightfully swoon.

Travolta, in particular, is completely in his element. He plays Danny Zuko with great humor, and his clumsy bumbling attempts to win Sandy back lend the film much charm. But nostalgia predominates. Those over thirty-five might still remember the return of the leather jackets, which had to be worn with turned-up collars. Or the mega-success of the single You're the One That I Want, which dominated the charts for weeks and guaranteed Grease viewers a happy ending. The name Travolta was untouchable. The world was at his feet, and Henry Winkler, the actor who played The Fonz in the TV series Happy Days, was tearing his hair out because he had refused the role of Danny (for fear of type-casting). However, Travolta's success would not last long.

A Moment Too Far

When I read a script, I look at the story first and then at the character, says Travolta about the choosing a new project. I really go for roles that immediately intrigue me, challenge me, and where I can be effective. I also really love variety. I like playing a completely different character every time, like Dustin Hoffman always does. Perhaps Travolta would have refused the role now, but shortly after Grease there was apparently a need to try something completely different.

In Moment by Moment, Travolta plays a young stud named Strip (!) who gets into a relationship with a much older woman (Lily Tomlin). The public stayed away in droves and the film marked the beginning of a long series of Travolta flops.

In 1983, the falling star therefore signed the contract for Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever. With none other than Sylvester Stallone as director and co-writer, this project seemed to be the way to give his career a new boost.

Survival

I'll pick you as the next opponent in Rocky IV, joked Sylvester Stallone during the filming of the sequel to Saturday Night Fever. To slip back into the role of Tony Manero, Travolta underwent rigorous training. It made little difference, however, as Staying Alive did not become the hit the producers had hoped for. In Staying Alive, Tony tries to make it in a real musical on Broadway. He eventually shines in a major show and has the luxury problem of not being able to choose between two women.

Somewhere on the street, he bumps into a bespectacled Stallone, and at the end, right before the performance, someone shouts Yo Adrian. Showtime! Amusing for insiders, but jokes like that don't make a good film.

The major flaw of Staying Alive is that Stallone assumed the original was a dance film. The fascinating and lifelike character from Saturday Night Fever has been reduced in Part 2 to an ambitious nobody who is pushed very hard to work reached the top. Travolta's talents were also deemed too light for the demanding choreography of the Broadway musical. Stallone apparently noticed this too, as every dance scene intended to be beautiful resorts to agonizingly slow slow-motion shots. Only just before the end credits does anything of the atmosphere of the original returns when Tony puts his old dancing shoes back on and takes a stroll to the music of The Bee Gees.

The Comeback Kid

It wasn't until the late eighties that Travolta would score another commercial hit, with Look Who's Talking. After Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), he managed to continue that success. Quentin was even angry with me because I had let my career stagnate so much, says Travolta about the less successful period. He told me that I wasn't aware of my own potential. That completely woke me up.

After Pulp Fiction, for which Travolta received only 100 thousand dollars, the actor scored one hit after another. His current asking price is 20 million dollars per film. He doesn't need sequels anymore these days, so we don't have to worry about a new Look Who's Talking.

By Yuri Donsu

Grease DVD

Company: Paramount
Image: Anamorphic (16:9)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Extras: 20 Years of Grease Trailer: interviews with Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Jeff Conaway, Randal Kleiser, and producer Allan Carr, among others, original songbook

Grease and Saturday Night Fever Contest

To put the DVD release of Paramounts Eighties dance titles in the spotlight, DVD REPORT is organizing a contest about Grease and Saturday Night Fever. To stand a chance to win a DVD AND CD of one of these films, you must answer the following three questions correctly.

Question 1: What is the name of the actress who plays the role of Betty Rizzo in Grease?
Question 2: How old was John Travolta when Saturday Night Fever was released?
Question 3: Who was the first choice for the role of Danny?
You can send your answers no later than October 15, 2002 to: DVD Report, Attn: Grease Contest, P.O. Box 262, 5550 AG Valkenswaard. Prize winners will be notified personally.