GREASE

STIGWOOD/CARR/PARAMOUNT, 1978 | COLOR (METROCOLOR)/PANAVISION, 110 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: RANDAL KLEISER PRODUCERS: ALLAN CARR AND ROBERT STIGWOOD SCREENPLAY: BRONTÉ WOODARD, ADAPTED FROM THE SCRIPT OF THE MUSICAL PLAY BY JIM JACOBS AND WARREN CASEY SONGS: WARREN CASEY (MUSIC) AND JIM JACOBS (LYRICS), JOHN FARRAR AND BARRY GIBB (ADDITIONAL SONGS) CHOREOGRAPHER: PATRICIA BIRCH STARRING: JOHN TRAVOLTA (DANNY), OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN (SANDY), STOCKARD CHANNING (RIZZO), JEFF CONAWAY (KENICKIE), EVE ARDEN (PRINCIPAL MCGEE), FRANKIE AVALON (TEEN ANGEL), BARRY PEARL (DOODY), DIDI CONN (FRENCHY), DINAH MANOFF (MARTY), SID CAESAR (COACH CALHOUN)

A high-school greaser and a good girl find romance despite their differences.

At a time when musicals on film were next to extinct, this boisterous piece of pop nostalgia went through the roof. Like The Sound of Music, this is a success beyond normal movie parameters. Timing is everything, and few musicals ever landed at so perfect a moment.

Millions of people in the 1970s wanted to look back, and the rock ’n’ roll era of the late 1950s and early ’60s offered easy comfort. Accordingly, the popular hits of the ’70s included American Graffiti on film, Happy Days on television and, on Broadway, a sleeper called Grease.

When it came time to turn Grease into a movie, there was added to the mix the charisma of a newly minted megastar. With performing roots on Broadway and television, John Travolta had just demonstrated sensational dance skills in one of the decade’s defining hits, Saturday Night Fever. For that film’s producers, Grease would be something of a follow-up, and as close to a sure thing as possible for any musical at that time. The role of Sandy was reconfigured to suit Australian pop star Olivia Newton-John, and the scrappier ’50s beat of the original was deftly interlocked with suggestions of ’70s disco.

The key factor, it was determined, would be energy—in the music, the cast, and the dancing. Patricia Birch, who had choreographed the show on Broadway, repeated her duties for the film’s expanded canvas, which moved the setting to California from the original’s Chicago. With a few veterans (Eve Arden, Sid Caesar, Joan Blondell) added to the young(ish) cast, a modestly budgeted and brightly colored production, and a summertime release, Grease took off like gangbusters. Huge crowds of mainly young viewers came to see it again and again, easily making it the top-grossing film of the year.

By some measure, Grease is the Star Wars of the movie musical—a deeply internalized talisman to be enjoyed over and over by those who saw and loved and perhaps needed it when it was new and they were young, then later to be passed along to children and eventually grandchildren. As with The Sound of Music and Rocky Horror, its popularity has dictated that subsequent revivals of the stage version be adjusted to better conform to the movie that so many more people know. The reasons for the enthusiasm are plain. There is the catchiness of the music and, once again, that energy, permeating everything and making sure that the script doesn’t go too long without another song, or at least a drag race. There is also the particular nature of the nostalgia: a mashup of the late ’50s and early ’60s as they seldom were, seen through a ’70s sensibility.