Grease is a four-letter word: cash
Proven box-office smash, Grease hits screen again
By Steve Warren, Contributing Writer
A 20-year-old movie about 30-year-old high school students, Grease is the latest test of whether people will pay theatrical prices to see a movie they already own on video. The sound may be beefed up but there are no added scenes or enhanced special effects as in the Star Wars trilogy.
What was once an affectionate spoof of the 1950s, Grease has evolved into a piece of nostalgia for the 1970s, when it was made. Otherwise it hasn’t changed. That seems to be good news for a lot of people, probably enough to cause a Grease fire at the box office.
A young, slender, pre-Clintonian John Travolta stars as Danny Zuko, one of the T-Birds, the coolest cats in the Rydell High Class of ‘59. He had a summer fling with Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John), who was visiting from Australia, and is surprised to find her enrolled at Rydell in the fall, where she’s befriended by a more worldly-acting girl gang called the Pink Ladies.
Their romance has its ups and downs for a while she dates football star Lorenzo Lamasas does one between their gangmates Betty Rizzo (Stockard Channing) and Kenickie (Jeff Conaway). There are the usual ’50s locations: the drive-in, the beach, the malt shop; plus a drag race and a dance in the school gym.
The movie’s loaded with songs-a baker’s dozen from Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s score for the Broadway show, four written for the film and several actual oldies, some original recordings and some redone by Sha-Na-Na, a ’70s band that did ’50s covers. The title of one song, “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” lost its secondary meaning (Sandra D.) when the character’s name was changed from Dumbrowski (in the stage version) to Olsson because the latter sounds more Australian. (To whom?)
If there's a queer sensibility to Grease - well, you've got a cameo by Fannie Flagg and abundant rumors about the Johns, Olivia Newton and Travolta.
The supporting cast includes a number of icons from the ’50s and before: Eve Arden, Sid Caesar, Joan Blondell, Edd Byrnes, Frankie Avalon; plus Dody Goodman and Fannie Flagg. Like the younger actors, some are more fondly remembered than others, and some pretty much forgotten today.
But Grease is remembered. Judging from a preview audience, it’s reached cult status among people who weren’t born yet when it was made. It’s strictly fluff, even if Channing, who was playing half her age, turns “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” into an emotional aria worthy of Callas.
If there’s a queer sensibility to Grease -well, you’ve got director Randal Kleiser, producer Allan Carr, writer Bronte Woodward, a cameo by Fannie Flagg and abundant rumors about the Johns, Olivia Newton and Travolta; and surely a lot more we don’t know about. They make sure this straight love story will tickle funny bones of all persuasions.
Opens today in wide release.