Thoughts on Grease

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Paramount Pictures

"Danny, is this the end?"
"Of course not. ... It's only the beginning."

It's time yet again for Thoughts On in the purest sense:

1. How appropriate for me to have rewatched Grease on the day of the Academy Awards. The fabulous Allan Carr is part of both's history. Allan fell from grace in Hollywood after producing the '89 Oscars, which included Olivia Newton-John as a presenter. Allan was also the "executive talent consultant" for the '78 telecast, which opened with a tribute of dubious taste and sincerity. Sound familiar?

2. What Bob Fosse is to Cabaret, Allan Carr is to Grease. Both men left an impact that's all but impossible to remove from the material. Grease's movie adaptation was produced by Robert Stigwood and Carr. The latter brought the property to Stigwood (Saturday Night Fever), then assigned himself to co-write the screenplay with author Bronte Woodard. I forgot that Grease on stage was entirely by Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey.

3. According to the book Party Animals, "As (Carr) saw it, Grease was his high school story -- after he and Bronte made a few changes." Allan is so tied to Grease, he even pitched the 1998 re-release. The story goes that a 1996 Entertainment Weekly article on the success of the then-ongoing Broadway revival inspired him.

4. Speaking of Grease and Broadway, it's worth noting that the original Broadway production ran for nearly two more years after the movie's release. On the Line, the book chronicling A Chorus Line's history, claimed that Grease limped its way to the title of Broadway's longest-runner, which it held from 1980-1983 before being overtaken by ACL. Things were different for the 1994-1998 production of Grease!, which added the exclamation point and had closed by the time the movie was out again. Based on the Internet Broadway Database, in both in 1978 and 1998, there were no touring productions of Grease along with the releases.

5. Okay, now onto the movie ... This was how I first heard "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," in the style that Vincent Canby called "so marvelously, soaringly inane." Notice that Sandy (Olivia) is the one whose face is fully seen first.

6. That was a rather intense kiss, Danny (John Travolta)! Foreshadowing?

7. It's close, but I'll give the crown for least flattering animated depiction to Stockard Channing as Rizzo. Jeff Conaway as Kenickie may look like an effete Fred Gwynne in his, but still ...

via Pinterest/Courtesy Paramount

8. I'm struck by a comment in Roger Ebert's 1998 review. "In the 1950s at MGM, (Travolta) would have been best friend, not star." I started imagining Kelly Ward (Putzie) playing Carleton Carpenter's roles. Speaking of the golden age, until now I never noticed "Debbie Reynolds in Tammy" is on the marquee in the opening credits. The theater is a Paramount, naturally.

9. Travolta gets a second chance at a star entrance, and it's a doozy! Bravo, director Randal Kleiser. Bravo.

10. You know what I love about Frenchy (Didi Conn)? She's maybe known Sandy for two weeks at best by the time school's started and is treating her like a sister.

11. As great as Frenchy is, if you're from my generation and "played Grease," you did it wrong if you didn't call dibs on Rizzo.

12. "May I help you, dear?" "Oh, yes, this is my first day of school and I'm not really sure where I'm supposed to be." Uh, Sandy? It's everybody's first day of school.

13. "Alma Mater" plays and I wonder if Jacobs & Casey had their own version of the George S. Kaufman joke. "Pardon me, I think I just heard one of my songs being used."

14. "Patty Simcox, the Bad Seed of Rydell High -- Hi!" Rizzo barely tolerating Patty (Susan Buckner) is the high point of movie comedy in 1978. Prove me wrong! "Isn't that the most? Say the least." "The very least."

15. Fourteen minutes in, and we finally have a live action musical number. For me, it's impossible to hear "Summer Nights" without thinking of the guys shuffling on the bleachers, or "Greased Lightnin'" without the arms sliding and pumping, or "You're the One That I Want" without the strutting hips. Choreographer Patricia Birch might have been an accidental genius, coming up with moves that fans can easily do.

16. Hello, Lorenzo Lamas. The funny thing is, he looks just like a boy I didn't get along with in high school.

17. God, I love Rizzo's poker face during Sandy and Danny's ill-fated reunion. I assume that Rizzo knows how sincere Danny can be and she's curious if he'll crack. It gives extra weight to his wounded glance when they're briefly alone after Sandy's run off, which is admittedly weighty enough. Over all, Travolta gets the crown for this scene. His split-second transformation from romantic Danny to hipster Danny is impressive.

18. Frenchy's family could afford a second TV? Also, it took me way too long to realize it wasn't named "Lock of Fury Beauty School."

19. 

via Tenor/Courtesy Paramount

You said it, sister!

20. I wonder how many parents have shrugged and figured, "Oh, it's not like they know what 'sloppy seconds,' 'flog your log,' 'gang bang' and 'my 25-cent insurance policy' mean?"

21. Gary Arnold's pan in the Washington Post includes this hilarious thought on "Hopelessly Devoted to You." "(Olivia is) throttled by over-orchestration. An interlude that outght to be as sweet as Judy Garland singing 'The Boy Next Door' is transformed into an earsore." As we say on Datalounge, MARY!

22. Welcome to the second quarter of the movie! On the one hand, it sucks that Conway lost the number he was entitled to. On the other hand, giving "Greased Lightnin'" to Travolta gives the song and sequence more of an Elvis feel. I like to imagine that had the King been alive, he'd have added "Lightnin'" to his setlists.

23. Travolta doesn't get enough credit for his comedy skills. He's the reason why this shoed-in sequence of Danny trying and failing at basketball, wrestling and baseball ultimately works. Later on, I love Danny's "Well, this night's fucked." reactions as the T-Birds and Pink Ladies intrude on his and Sandy's date.

24. "Grab it and growl" became shorthand in my family for "I'm not cooking tonight, you're on your own."

25. I'm confused about Frenchy's status following "Beauty School Dropout." It's implied that she took the tough love from the Teen Angel (Frankie Avalon) and decided "to go back to high school." You'd think she was eligible for graduation with most of her peers, but in Grease 2, which takes place several years later, Frenchy makes it sound like she's just now resuming her education.

26. "Biggest thing that ever happened to Rydell High and we don't have dates." "What about Rudy from the Capri Lounge?" "Get serious." "It's a suggestion." "Well, I already called him." For decades, I've wanted to know more about Rudy (gigolo? gay?) and the Capri Lounge (respectable? a dive?).

27. We're technically more than halfway through Grease, but the National Bandstand dance is an effective second act opener. The sequence lasts for nearly 20 minutes!

28. Between Rizzo and Cha-Cha (Annette Charles), Danny sure had a type before he met Sandy.

29. Aww, Blanche (Dody Goodman) is this close to becoming a Johnny Casino and the Gamblers (Johnny Contardo and Sha Na Na) groupie.

30. Again, it took me years to realize why Tom was dancing like that to "Tears on My Pillow." He's buzzed!

31. Stealing this one from Courtney Enlow, Syfy. "The diner wait staff fangrrling over their favorite students is honestly ADORABLE." Followed by, "The diner wait staff fangrrling over their favorite students' butts is honestly LESS ADORABLE."

32. As a kid, I really did think the FBI had the ability to identify you by your butt. In 2022, they probably do. Within Grease, it's Miss McGee (Eve Arden) demonstrating how she's survived being around teenagers for as long as she has.

33. "Oh, Danny, this (ring) means so much to me, cause I know now that you respect me." Sandy dotes on the ring while Danny is apparently first engaging with the concept of respecting a girl.

34. Now it's time for Stockard & Jeff/Rizzo & Kenickie's big scene. God, the sorta-hope across Rizzo's face when she wants to know why Kenickie's concerned about her possible pregnancy is so sweet. Like with the Danny-Sandy reunion, posturing gets in the way. "I don't run away from my mistakes." "Hey, don't worry about it, Kenickie. It was somebody else's mistake." To rip off The Simpsons, you can actually pinpoint the second when Kenickie's heart rips in half. "... Thanks a lot, kid." "Anytime."

35. Danny's second chance with Sandy is dunzo, bringing us to "Sandy" and the approximate fourth quarter mark. Who wants a hot dog?

36. It feels like there's so much going on beneath the surface of Kenickie and Danny's pre-race conversation. One of these days, I'm going to track down Jacobs & Casey's book (collected in the 1979 anthology Great Rock Musicals) and Carr & Woodard's script (included with some copies when Grease was re-released on video in 1998; I briefly skimmed it) and find out who wrote what. You'd figure Kenickie's inarticulate but touching (... oh, to hell with it: Gay, Gay, GAY!) words were newly-invented, but that's not necessarily so.

37. Sing it, Stockard! "I don't steal and I don't lie!/But I can feel and I can cry/A fact I'll bet you nev-er knew/But to cry in front of you/That's the worst thing I could do-oo."

38. Cha Cha and Crater Face, later known as Balmudo (Dennis Cleveland Stewart), apparently have an on-again, off-again thing that's just as torrid as Rizzo & Kenickie or Danny & Sandy.

39. "See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck." is another of those ideas that's stayed in my mind all these years, although I always remember Jan (Jamie Donnelly) as saying "Find a penny ..."

40. Kenickie/Jeff just cannot catch a break. First he loses "Greased Lightnin'" the song to Danny/Travolta, then he loses the chance to drive it to him. Danny evidently didn't think to give it back, based on the ending.

41. Another joke I didn't get until my teens: McGee's mentions of inspirational people ending with "Vice President Nixon," and Doody (Barry Pearl) thinking that could be the life for him.

42. Thank you for giving us one last chance to ogle Lorenzo Lamas, movie.

43. I didn't research how Broadway reviewers felt about Sandy changing her image for Danny, but movie reviewers have never stopped talking about it. Arnold again: "The sight of Newton-John in a slinky-kinky black outfit and ratty blonde wig somehow rationalized the whole debacle. Every tacky conception, lewd joke and disheveled sequence along the way points toward this consummation: the transformation of traditional ingenue into contemporary floozy." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly, 1998: "Even transformed ... she's as shiny as a Breck girl."

44. You have to wonder how long Sandy's transformation lasted. The lyrics to the "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" reprise imply that it's intended to be permanent, but I feel like if Sandy and Danny ended up staying together and were genuinely in love, they'd have had to compromise. Borrowing the words from another controversial favorite, Pretty Woman: "She rescues him right back."

45. Final score: Four main actors. Six supporting actors. Eight guest stars. 10 featured actors. Twenty-six songs, including four written for the movie, seven interpolated oldies and seven that more or less survived the leap from stage to screen.

Recommended. What can I say? I grew up with Grease. I can't really grade it objectively.

Thoughts:

-- "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter." Friggin' A, McGee! Friggin' A!

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $132.5 million in its original domestic run on a $6 million budget, Grease ranked No. 1 for 1978. The re-release, which opened at No. 2 between Titanic and Primary Colors, grossed $28.4 million, coming in at No. 69 for 1998. You could argue that compared to the Star Wars re-releases in 1997, which ranked eighth, 21st and 46th, resepectively, the Grease re-release was a flop, but it actually was considered highly successful. Variety: "Grease slick again."

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "Throbs with the rhythms of the '50s, but it has the feel of now," Arthur Knight declared for The Hollywood Reporter in 1978. "Nostalgia has given (Grease) a quaintness it never had in the first place," Janet Maslin wrote in 1998. "(It) was -- and still is -- a clunker," Schwarzbaum wrote. Nevertheless, she conceded that "Grease is a creaker, but it's America's creaker." "'Grease is the Word,' say the ads. Now that the film version has opened," Arnold sniffed, "the word that springs immediately to mind is 'excruciating.' ... If it's true that Grease reflects (Carr's) fondest dreams of what a movie musical should look and feel like, he should be put away." MARY!

-- Critic's Corner, John and Olivia: "It is now clear that, slumps or not, comebacks or not, Travolta is an important and enduring movie star whose presence can redeem even a compromised Grease," Ebert wrote in 1998. "I'm still not sure if (Travolta) is a great actor, but he's a fine performer with the kind of energy and humor that are brough to life by the musical numbers," Canby wrote in 1978. Canby liked Newton-John, calling her "very funny and utterly charming. ... She posesses true screen presence as well as a sweet, sure singing voice." Knight went further: "She's a kind of '70s Debbie Reynolds -- and I project for her the same cinematic longevity, if she so chooses." Arnold was just full of the hot takes! "Newton-John and Travolta will be fortunate if they come out of this mess with only first-degree career burns," he wrote."

-- Comparisons to Saturday Night Fever were inevitable. Hell, Knight opened his review with, "If you think that Saturday Night Fever has everything, wait until you see Grease." He also added that Travota "in effect" repeated his performance from the first film, but felt "his dancing is better this time out." Ebert: "Romance and breaking up are matters of life and death for teenages, and a crisis of self-esteem can be a crushing burden. Grease doesn't seem to remember that. Saturday Night Fever does."

-- Schwarzbaum also weighed in on the gay appeal. "Modern eyes may appreciate the movie's intense boy-boy communion with new amusement," she wrote. "Those T-Birds may have sworn they were looking for girls who 'put out,' but they only have eyes for each other."

-- Point/Counterpoint: Canby felt "the film's score ... is one of the best things about the production." Arnold: "How many other hit (Broadway) shows can boast a score without a single memorable song?"

-- Awards Watch: For all of Grease's success, it went zero for five at the 1979 Golden Globe Awards. The movie and Travolta lost to Heaven Can Wait and Warren Beatty, Newton-John lost to a tie between Ellen Burstyn for Same Time, Next Year and Maggie Smith for California Suite and "Grease" and "You're the One That I Want" lost to "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday. "Last Dance" also beat "Hopelessly Devoted to You" at the Oscars. Grease's soundtrack, meanwhile, lost the Album of the Year Grammy to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. That same year, Newton-John was nominated for "Hopelessly Devoted to You," but lost to Anne Murray and "You Needed Me." Things were rosier at the People's Choice Awards. Grease won Favorite Movie, Favorite Musical and Favorite Supporting Actress for Channing.

-- Fanservice Junction: Besides Tom's shirtlessness at the carnival, there's Cha Cha flashing her panties, Patty having her dress lifted by Kenickie and Sonny, Doody and Putzie mooning for National Bandstand's camera. Carr and Woodard actually scripted a whole line of masked men at the dance taking part, followed by a cut to Marty's freaked-out mom. "Fred! Call the authorities!"

-- Hey, It's 1978!: 

Courtesy YouTube

-- Hey, It's 1998!: As Maslin predicted in her review, it was "a Rocky Horror-style hoot to watch Grease with an enthusiastic audience (who feels about it) exactly as you do." That comes across in Matea Gold's account for the Los Angeles Times of an enthusiastic 10:15 p.m. showing at Mann's Chinese Theatre. "Or maybe -- God forbid -- Grease isn't just superficial fluff. Maybe the musical's treatment of self-image, social pressure and the search for personal identity hits a chord for anybody beginning to muddle (their) way through adulthood. I didn't know the reason, but the kinship was undeniable."

-- "Still, I'm no stranger to heartbreak." "Why? You got psoriasas?"

-- Next: The Spanish Prisoner. On deck: Lost in Space.