Production designer Phil Jefferies’s sketch for the Frosty Palace came vividly to life.
© Philip Jefferies/Courtesy Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
Hell’s Chariot on the back lot of Paramount Studios
The Scene
This hangout for the kids at Rydell High is another set where the production went all out to make it true to life. We shot both its exterior and interior on the lot.
The Frosty Palace’s over-the-top exterior was first seen in the animated title sequence with the credit “Dances & Musical Sequences Staged & Choreographed by Patricia Birch.” It comes to life when the Scorpions careen down the main street in Hell’s Chariot, scattering pedestrians and whooping it up. The car belches fire as it passes by the diner’s awning with its dangling icicles and the gigantic snowman holding ice cream cones and its trademark “Dog-Sled Delites.”
Kenickie and Danny stand outside the Frosty Palace, and some sharp-eyed fans have spotted that in this sequence Kenickie can be seen pointing to the Scorpions twice, once from a distance and once from closer in, when the two are talking about the Scorpions. We were often changing some of the lines or shifting them for pacing and to make the scenes better. In the shooting script, the line “Still thinking about this chick?” is inside the Frosty Palace, but in the film Kenickie says it outside on the street. John’s strut as he gathers his cool and enters Frosty Palace was another place where he was channeling Elvis.
Ritchie Valens’s 1958 hit “La Bamba” on the jukebox sets the rock-and-roll tone of the setting. While Danny can’t stop staring at Sandy sitting with Tom (and wearing his letter jacket), the T-Birds have a rapid-fire discussion about “chicks”—another place where improvisation boosted scripted lines. During production, both on and off camera, I paid attention to any chemistry that was starting to develop, to see if I could work it into the script.
Lorenzo Lamas as Sandy’s boyfriend, Tom Chisum, was perfect for the role. He didn’t have any lines in the script but he made the most of every second he was on camera. His silence is a great contrast to the chattering of the other high schoolers.
At the jukebox, Sandy remains coolly distant while Danny tries to explain himself, leading up to Sandy’s challenge “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Danny’s reaction after her line is pure Travolta.
Jeff Conaway and John, best friends on and off the screen
The Pepsi Promotion
Allan Carr was a genius at generating publicity. One of his many ideas for the movie was in its marketing. He made a deal with Pepsi-Cola to help promote the movie during the summer of ’78. Unfortunately, he never mentioned this to the set decorator, who covered the Frosty Palace set with Coke paraphernalia.
Pepsi ticket giveaway
Allan went nuts when he saw on the dailies a big Coke poster right behind Olivia in the Frosty Palace. With our budget, reshooting the sequence was out of the question. The poster was painstakingly blurred frame by frame to mask the error, using primitive late-seventies technology. For the 2018 release and Blu-ray, I researched and found a fifties-era Pepsi sign to position behind Sandy and Tom. We were finally able to digitally fix the set decorator’s blunder with twenty-first-century technology.
A photo from the set showing the original Coke poster
The poster blurred for the 1978 release
The digital fix with the fifties-era Pepsi poster for the 2018 rerelease
The Location
Unlike most of the other exteriors in the movie, Frosty Palace wasn’t shot on location but on a street on a back lot of Paramount. We populated the street with period cars and signs—and the Scorpions driving by to weave in the rivalry between gangs and help set up the climactic Thunder Road race.
Using Stage 16 at Paramount for the interiors meant that Bill Butler didn’t have to do extensive work to prepare the location, such as blacking in windows for a night effect or setting up a generator and cables, as he had to do in the Huntington Park High School gymnasium for the dance contest. Meanwhile, Phil Jefferies, the production designer, added the flavor of the era to the interiors with all sorts of fifties-specific touches. He had designed the set so that Frenchy would see the Teen Angel “beyond the soffits.” “Beyond the what?” I asked him. He explained that soffits are an architectural touch near the top of a wall. As Frankie appeared, he wanted the ceiling to disappear.
One exception to the fifties-era touches that sharp-eyed fans have pointed out was the jukebox, which appears to be a Wurlitzer 1050 from 1973 that copied the design of a classic 1950s-era jukebox. It could have been an oversight, but I doubt it. Phil was tremendously talented, having worked in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Manchurian Candidate (and gone on to do An Officer and a Gentleman). He always had a good reason for anything he did; in this case, he might have been channeling the seventies.
LEFT TO RIGHT: John, costume designer Albert Wolsky, casting director Joel Thurm, choreographer Pat Birch, and producer Allan Carr
The Music
To find the right songs to play on the jukebox during this scene, we assembled a huge fifties wish list and then pared it down. “La Bamba” is heard in the background as Sandy and Danny studiously avoid each other. Later in the scene, I was able to add “It’s Raining on Prom Night” from the stage production as Danny apologizes to Sandy.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Production designer Phil Jefferies, screenwriter Bronte Woodard, casting director Joel Thurm, John’s manager Bob LeMond, and producer Allan Carr
Danny as a Jock
In the shooting script, Danny was generally portrayed as being very bad at sports, or, in the case of basketball, being a bit too “dazzling” to be believable. As we rehearsed, I could tell this idea was not working. Casting director Joel Thurm suggested having Danny use his street smarts and tough-guy attitude to plow through the various sports.
Once we came up with the concept of Danny bringing his greaser vibe to sports, it was easy to work with Sid and John to come up with the bits and add a bit of comedy.
Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun: “To begin with, you gotta change . . .”
We also needed a moment for Danny to be embarrassed and have Sandy come to the rescue. I thought about when I ran the 180-yard low hurdles in high school and how I often tripped and fell flat on my face. I adapted it into the story.
I’m second from the left, running hurdles at Radnor High in ’64.
© Jeff Kleiser/Courtesy Randal Kleiser
In the script, Danny falls and is knocked out, and Sandy wakes him up and helps him get back to his feet. We felt it would be stronger for Danny’s character to jump back up and be in control, quick to put down Tom watching them from the bleachers. During preproduction, John wanted to get familiar with running hurdles. He had his stand-in, Peter Collister (production assistant and future cinematographer), drive him to Fairfax High School to practice. Because he wore a hat, no one recognized him on the track.
