Grease

The Scene

With a “a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!” the final number begins, marking the end of the school year. This scene is a good example of how Pat Birch’s twenty dancers each instructed the extras around them in the choreography. Everyone in the background is fully engaged in energetic dancing. (You’d never know that we shot this during a record-breaking August heatwave.)

Adapting the choreography from the Broadway production to the large scale of the football field and hundreds of dancers among carnival rides was a challenge, but Pat was up to it. We built the beginning of the sequence up to get a last look at the characters: Danny and Sandy first, joined by Kenickie and Rizzo, then, as if popping up from under the camera, Jan and Putzie. From the sides enter Marty and Sonny, with Doody and Frenchy chiming in. When Pat’s dancers zip in, dancing up a storm, it’s like seeing the entire high school say goodbye on the last day of school.

There is something infectious about “We Go Together,” and we came up with transitions to keep the energy of the song. From the dancers, we zip pan to rides moving in the same direction. Danny and Sandy jump into the frame and then exit to reveal Pat’s dancers giving it their all in a shot that showcased their talent.

Then it is farewell, with Patty and Tom handing out yearbooks at the end of the long lines of dancers. Each person gets a final cameo moment, and the dancers reveal the fantasy version of Greased Lightnin’, Danny behind the wheel and Sandy beside him, driving off into the skies.

The Shot

Despite the exuberant dancing, at times the cast and crew were wilting in the triple-digit heat. One dancer even passed out as she jumped off the bleachers (only to wake up with her head in John Travolta’s lap—she was okay). There was something about the song that kept everyone going.

We used a crane in the sequence, which allowed us to cover distance and pivot at a center point without a dolly track showing; as the dancers moved toward us as a group, we would back away smoothly on the crane. This gave us an incredible flexibility, and it worked without a hitch—almost. Bill Butler remembered when we were doing this and future movie director Andy Tennant decided to add an extra flip in the air during the shot, but we’d done only one in rehearsal, so we weren’t prepared. As the camera crane was racing across the ground, Andy did that double flip right into one of the crane’s arms and was dragged along. It was terrifying, but luckily he wasn’t badly injured and even came back the next day to make that one flip we needed again.

Riding the whirligig with operator Jim Connell and cinematographer Bill Butler

The Choreography

“Nobody’s going to like being one of three hundred people taught a step by some lady,” is the reasoning Pat gave for assigning her dancers, “D1” through “D20,” the task of teaching fifties dance steps to two hundred others. She knew that her dancers were a competitive bunch, so when she told them to break into girl-guy pairs, grab ten kids, and practice the steps, she was confident that they’d all try to “outdance” the others. By the day of the shoot, with the cameras trained on the dancers, they exploded with energy. The shot where Pat’s “gang” is featured was during an instrumental section of the song, so the dancers got to show off their talent.

RANDAL: One crazy thing was doing the whole “We Go Together” sequence with no cameras in front of director George Cukor. Everyone jumping and dancing in the hot sun. But I was showing off to my idol. I was so excited to say, “Look what we’ve done!”

MICHAEL: “Excitement” is such a great word for it. We were all filled with excitement. Eve Arden, she just had a ball.

KELLY: My triumph was that—Randal, I don’t know how you kept it in the film—I stuck my head between John and Olivia in “We Go Together” and split them apart, while we’re walking at [singing] “We’re one of a kind.” I’m looking up at them like some kind of disembodied head on a swivel. I thought, “I’m going to get in trouble for this but I’m going to do it anyway.”

RANDAL: It’s good! It gave a feeling of camaraderie.

RIGHT: Choreographer Pat Birch and cast members at the carnival at John Marshall High School

Set Visitors

Two of my favorite directors visited the set during this number, John Schlesinger, who made the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy, and George Cukor, the director of classic films including My Fair Lady and A Star Is Born. Pat and I offered to show Mr. Cukor the three-minute-long “We Go Together.” We sat him in a director’s chair at one end of the football field and started playback. Two hundred cast members and dancers at the other end worked their way down the field through the song until they landed at Cukor’s feet, sweating and breathing heavily. Pat and I looked over at him expectantly. “Good stuff . . . very spirited,” he quipped.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t roll the cameras during this run-through. I was so excited to be showing this spectacular number to Cukor that it didn’t occur to me.

Choreographer Pat Birch invited Midnight Cowboy director John Schlesinger to the set.

Popsicle break with My Fair Lady director George Cukor. Unreal!

RANDAL: Dinah, you were dancing during the carnival at the end but you’ve said you can’t dance. How did you handle that?

DINAH: I could do all those steps. My idea was, if I, in this character, just move my hips from side to side and pout my lips, I’m going to get away with whatever I have to get away with.

The cast goofing off between takes. I spotted them and used it in the movie.

Near the end of the shoot, the cast begins their goodbyes.

The Song

While driving in my convertible back and forth to the set every day, I listened to the music of the Broadway production on cassette tape. During our preparation for the “We Go Together” shoot, I heard the lines at the ending of the song—“We’ll always be together”—repeating over and over. As I drove, I began singing some fifties riffs over it, like “Who put the bop in the bob shoo bop shoo bop” and “Ooo eee ooo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang” and various “ooo-ahhs.” I took this idea to our music team, who brought in singers and added those riffs over the ending of the song.

I would listen to music tracks to and from work.

The End

The ending with Danny and Sandy riding the fantasy Greased Lightnin’ into the sky came from a desire to give the movie an over-the-top, surreal ending. Somewhere, someone started a rumor on the internet that the whole movie is a flashback appearing before Sandy’s eyes before she drowned. This was triggered by the line in “Summer Nights” in which Danny sings, “She swam by me, she nearly drowned.” What if she had drowned? Would that explain why they appear in the fantasy Greased Lightnin’ car at the end and fly up into the sky? Did this whole story flash before her eyes before she drowned?

The answer is NO!

It just seemed like a fun way to end the movie.

Other Endings

For the flyaway shot, we hired a helicopter to shoot the crowd below waving up at Danny and Sandy. We wanted it to pull back to see all of the city, but the crew and movie trucks were visible, so we couldn’t use it. Today with digital technology, they could have been painted out.

The shot of Danny and Sandy in the car was using a Hollywood tradition, back projection. They sat in a car on a movable platform and the carnival crowd was projected on a movie screen behind them.

This was another moment on the movie when I truly felt like a Hollywood director. Our set visitor that day was the big boss, Charles Bluhdorn, president of Gulf and Western, who owned Paramount at the time.

I shot a take where Danny and Sandy kiss as they fly away. I don’t know why it wasn’t used at the time. When I went back to the archives to find it, there was only a black-and-white copy. This alternate ending can be seen in the added content of the 2018 Blu-ray.

The missing kiss

Why does this car fly?

I had talked to production designer Phil Jefferies about the fantasy ending, and he drew these illustrations.

Movies are shot out of order. Here is our wrap party call sheet, where we announced the first screening of Saturday Night Fever for our cast and crew.