The Dance Contest

The Script

The shooting script describes an extensive overview to the sequence but instead we wanted to quickly establish the scene and then focus on the main characters as they entered. Throughout shooting the sequence, the cast and crew members were constantly coming up with bits of business and dialogue to add—some of it made it into the shooting script and others appeared on the day during the takes.

Doody and Frenchy didn’t have lines when they entered the gym but Barry ad-libbed his comparison of Frenchy to “a beautiful blond pineapple.” Michael Tucci, playing Sonny, came up with the idea of pouring a flask into the punch bowl in front of the teachers. When asked, “What are you doing?” he ad-libbed, “Washing my hands.”

Allan Carr was always thinking up new publicity stunts. He had flown in press from all over the country and wanted me to find a place to put them in the movie. They became the teachers hanging around the punch bowl near Sonny.

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I prefer to be right next to the camera, where I can have a quick conference between takes.

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As Danny and Sandy enter, the shooting script shows him being a bit cocky. To keep him a little more relatable and speed up the pace, we cut some lines and gave him an “in with the cameraman.” Meanwhile, we’d all come to know Susan Buckner’s prissy Patty Simcox character well; we knew she would get angry when something goes wrong at “her” dance, so we worked in her horrified reaction when the giant Ranger float gets destroyed. When we rehearsed the scene where Cha Cha says, “I’m the best dancer at St. Bernadette’s,” casting director Joel Thurm came over to me and whispered, “With the worst reputation.” I gave the line to Didi and Cha Cha shot daggers at her.

RANDAL: Olivia, I love the moment when you and John emerge from the crowd dancing. That’s one of my favorite moments in the film. The way the music comes together and you and John enter—it was magic. What was going through your mind? Were you just thinking, “This is cool”?

OLIVIA: I think I was in character, so I was upset because he was dancing with the other girl!

RANDAL: That’s very clear.

OLIVIA: Dancing wasn’t my forte. I was probably just a little bit nervous.

RANDAL: You’d never know it.

OLIVIA: I wasn’t really a dancer—but I started out with John Travolta and went to Gene Kelly in Xanadu.

RANDAL: Not bad!

The Scene

From “Hound Dog” to “Born to Hand Jive,” the gymnasium of Huntington Park High School rocked and rolled. Shooting during brutally hot summer days, we wanted the dance contest to burst with energy. It would showcase the dance crazes of the 1950s, the patter of Edd Byrnes as host Vince Fontaine, and Sha Na Na as Johnny Casino and the Gamblers.

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A parade of main characters enters, from Sonny nursing his booze and Leo sauntering in, his arms around Marty and Rizzo, to Doody admiring Frenchy’s “beautiful blond pineapple” look. “He’s the living end,” croons Marty, introducing us to Vince Fontaine, whom the audience first heard on the radio over the animated title sequence. Edd had been one of the very first teen idols of the first TV generation, playing Kookie in 77 Sunset Strip so he found the right comedic balance of sleaze and sex appeal in Vince. Danny and Sandy appear—she is hopeful and innocent in her pure white dress while Danny is cool in his tailored jacket that has more of a touch of seventies style. When Mr. Rudie introduces Johnny Casino and the Gamblers, the intensity of the dance kicks in as the camera swoops above the dancing crowd on a crane.

Dramatic action like the jealous rivalry between Kenickie and Leo punctuates the dance shots and help ratchet up the tension before the big car race later in the movie. Teachers get to have fun too, with Blanche dancing with Tom (again holding his own despite not having speaking lines), and Principal McGee and Coach Calhoun getting upstaged by Vince Fontaine’s rhyming patter. Moments were designed for each character, like Patty’s boisterous dance, Eugene’s awkward acceptance of the cheers and jeers of his classmates, and the fight between Leo and Kenickie.

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Production designer Phil Jefferies (right) created the look of the gymnasium, with streamers and floats, the bandstand, and the National Bandstand logo.

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During preproduction, I gave Phil Jefferies my rough sketch for the Rydell Ranger. I was amazed when I arrived on the set and saw it exactly reproduced ten feet tall.

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One of my favorite moments is the way the dancing and music combine when Danny and Sandy emerge onto the dance floor in the contest. In the Broadway production, Sandy didn’t even go to the prom and Danny danced with a wallflower-version of Cha Cha. In rehearsals, Pat Birch saw that Olivia “could put one foot in front of the other,” as Olivia has joked.

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The film crew waits for a finishing touch from choreographer Pat Birch during the complex dance contest.

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We used a vintage TV to show how America was watching in black-and-white. One of the people watching was John Travolta’s sister Ellen, cheering Danny and Sandy on with other waitresses at the Frosty Palace.

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Choreographer Pat Birch demos dance moves for Olivia and John

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Sandy does a great job keeping up with Danny until a drunk Sonny sweeps her away and Cha Cha takes her place. Ever since Annette’s characterization of the “best dancer at St. Bernadette’s,” many of the stage versions of Grease have included a sexy Cha Cha.

At the end of the contest, we had Cha Cha snatch the trophy out of Principal McGee’s hands, and we kept the action going until everyone got into the shot for the finale. During rehearsals, Pat had seen Edd walking on his hands and doing handsprings, so she got him to do his gymnastics at the end of “Born to Hand Jive,” when he flips into the shot and catches the microphone.

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The Shot

Many people think that the dance contest is sped up because the dancers are moving so quickly. It wasn’t. It was the spirit and energy of the actors and dancers.

“It was hot.” That’s usually what cast and crew say when interviewed about shooting the dance contest. It was the dead of summer and we spent a week at Huntington Park High School’s gymnasium without air-conditioning, cranking the windows wide-open . . . until we couldn’t stand the stench from the meat-packing plant next to the school and closed them again. As John has said, some days we spent more time sopping up sweat than dancing.

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Five days of heat, unpleasant smells, and long hours left us so exhausted that we didn’t mind taking naps on the hard gym floor.

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Periodically, Annette and the dancers fled outside for fresh air, where our set photographer David Friedman caught them jumping for joy.

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Another favorite shot was when we had the camera on a crane moving through the dancers as one conversation led to another. We used radio microphones on each of the actors. First Putzie says, “Doody, can’t you let me lead for a change?” and then we dialed up Frenchy for her “Doody, can’t you turn me around or something?” and then we ended up on Danny and Sandy. It was complicated to line up, but I think very effective.

The shot ends on one of the in-jokes when Danny sings along with “Magic Changes” and Sandy asks, “Did you ever think about taking up singing professionally?” The song had been John’s solo when he was playing Doody in the stage production.

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The original stage production of Grease had lots of sexual innuendo—one of the reasons it was such a hit with young audiences. For example, Vince Fontaine asks Marty by way of introducing himself, “Do your folks know I come into your room every night?” There were a lot of other things we threw in as well. When Marty is chatting with Vince and says her name is “Maraschino . . . like the cherry,” she puts her hand on the lens of the camera.

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RANDAL: Dinah, do you remember when you put your hand on the camera lens?

DINAH: That was instinct.

RANDAL: That’s one of the biggest laughs that we get.

DINAH: I have good instincts.

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“Did you ever think about taking up singing professionally?”

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Other racy moments

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Like the dance moves that Pat choreographed between Danny and Cha Cha, there are a few bits throughout the movie that go right over kids’ heads. Many people have told me that years after they first saw the movie, they saw it again and picked up on the double entendres and racy moments.

The Cinematography

To move through Pat Birch’s elaborate choreography during “Hand Jive” where Mr. Rudie walks through the dancers during the warm-up, Bill Butler came up with a combination of a wheelchair and a furniture dolly. Pat had worked out all the specific bits with the dancers, and Bill worked out the flow from one to the other.

Bill had experience shooting musical numbers for TV but this was his first big production musical, and even he wasn’t immune to the pressures of getting the shots just right. He was impressed by the physical stamina of the dancers, but he didn’t want them to have to do the numbers over and again whenever he needed to tweak any of the lights or cameras. So Bill and his gaffer, Colin Campbell, set up the lighting in the large gymnasium in such a way that we could shoot without making major changes. Each of the four corners of the room became a major light source, so that no matter in what direction we shot, one side could be the key light and the other side could be the backlight. We could shoot all day long without resetting the lights. This required a lot of preplanning, so he wanted to go to the location a couple of days before shooting was scheduled to take a look and plan everything out methodically. Unfortunately for him, someone at the school had decided to varnish the floors of the gymnasium and the floors didn’t dry until the day before we were scheduled to use the space. Timing was tight, but to Bill and his crew’s credit, everything was in place by the time the cast walked on the set.

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Going handheld during the dance contest

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Fun on the set

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Sha Na Na

Performing as Johnny Casino and the Gamblers, Sha Na Na launched the dance contest sequence with a cover of Danny and the Juniors’ “Rock ’n’ Roll Is Here to Stay.” Sha Na Na was the ideal band for the movie. Playing fifties rock and roll, they were a big hit at Woodstock, where they were the opening act for Jimi Hendrix. They went on to appear with the Grateful Dead, the Kinks, and John Lennon and had an international following. For our movie we outfitted them with flamboyant gold lamé outfits, leather jackets, and featured their pompadours and ducktail hairdos. In this sequence, they also perform two songs from the Broadway production, “Those Magic Changes” and “Born to Hand Jive,” as well as covering Elvis’s “Hound Dog” and “Blue Moon” and the Imperials’ “Tears on My Pillow.” I would have liked to play more of the movie on them, but there was too much story going on with all our characters.

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Set Visitors

There seemed to be a constant stream of visitors to the set, from Jane Fonda to Pat Birch’s mentor, the amazing John Houseman, who had worked with Orson Welles. But my favorite visitor was Glynnis O’Connor, who had played opposite John in the TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, only one year earlier.

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A Dropped Number: “It’s Raining on Prom Night”

One of my favorite songs from the play that didn’t make it to production was “It’s Raining on Prom Night.” I wanted to put this musical number after Sandy storms out of the dance because Danny dumped her to dance with Cha Cha. I had big plans for Olivia to sing this song while walking through the high school parking lot surrounded by rain machines. I wanted it to be a tribute to Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. I thought it would be quite amusing to shoot Olivia, soaking wet, singing, “My hair is a mess, it’s running all over my taffeta dress” and “Mascara flows right down my nose.” But Allan Carr did not like the idea of his star looking disheveled, and nixed it. I wanted to have this cool song somewhere in the movie, so we placed it in the Frosty Palace scene when Danny tries to make up with Sandy at the jukebox.

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The Costumes

The fifties can be about rigid rules and conformity; this wasn’t what Albert Wolsky envisioned for a stylized version of a high school dance. Within certain parameters—the actors needed to be able to move and do the choreography—Albert set to work on dresses that become bigger than life.

Sandy is prim and proper in a pale chiffon dress, with a full skirt. She is glamorous yet innocent and you can tell Danny will do anything for her. Compared to Sandy, Rizzo is gleefully provocative in a red dress with large black polka dots glittering with sequins. (Allan Carr kept ordering, “More sequins! More sequins!”) Marty, one of the most stylish characters in the movie, wows in an emerald-green dress that falls just below the knee—she almost looks like an adult, which attracts the eye of Vince Fontaine, who wears a flashy suit that fits both the role and Edd Byrnes perfectly. Albert said working with Eve Arden on her costumes was like working with an old-fashioned movie star—she was accustomed to wearing very stylish clothes, so Principal McGee became a very stylish principal.

Frenchy’s bright colors and elaborate hairdo and ensemble were a lot of fun for Albert to create. It’s not so unexpected to see Frenchy dressed so playfully, but Jan was a big surprise for the audience. She’s blossomed from a sweatshirt-wearing slob into a girl wearing an attractive party dress and looking to have the time of her life.

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Costume designer Albert Wolsky’s original sketches and color swatches for the dance contest

© Albert Wolsky/Courtesy Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences