Grease (1978)

Introduction

As many great minds before have already said in some form- Grease is the quintessential 50s musical… that was filmed in the 70s.

One of those minds was internet personality Nostalgia Critic- except he ragged on Saved by the bell for being an 80s show filmed in the 90s.

Both of these also feature adults in their 20s and 30s playing teenagers… but I’m not here to talk about all that.

I’ve been meaning to write about this movie (among a few others, admittedly) a little while… but with the recent passing of Olivia newton-John, I couldn’t put it off anymore.

And this is going to be more of a discussion than a review so this might not be your cup of tea if you’re the type of person that doesn’t like hearing strong opinions about things.

Maybe a little too cheesy...?

For the sake of saving time, I’m gonna skip over the usual credits to cast and crew. And other than 3 members of the main cast, I hadn’t heard of any of the other people. Exceptions being Sid Caesar (one of Mel Brooks’ biggest influences) as the gym teacher and Frankie Avalon, who makes a cameo in Frenchy’s dream sequence.

I’m not one of those people who grew up with this movie so by the time I did see it, it was too late for me to develop that certain nostalgia for it. The kind where you can acknowledge a movie isn’t perfect but that doesn’t matter cuz you remember it fondly for the elements that meant something special to you growing up.

For me, I enjoy the movie when it’s on but I can’t honestly say I love it. The songs, as memorable as they are, the only songs I could use “love” to describe are the three solos and “beauty school dropout” (Frankie Avalon being the one singing it is reason enough to enjoy it even with all the cheesiness)

A lot of this movie is ridiculously cheesy… almost to the point that it makes me cringe. The 80s gets ragged on a lot by newer generations for its fashion sense and I’m not gonna disagree with that.
But with Grease… I dunno… it feels like one of those movies where it takes itself a little too seriously and everything about it contradicts that. Yet that’s one of the issues people had with Xanadu (another ONJ movie) and I enjoy it more than Grease… doesn’t mean it couldn’t do without some of its musical numbers.

Breaking up is much easier to do than staying together...

Grease has a lot of those old 50s fashions and sensibilities, but it takes some influence from the Frankie and Annette beach movie of the 60s. But at least with “beach blanket bingo,” I went in knowing it wasn’t gonna be anything Oscar worthy and that made it a bit more enjoyable.
It’s tempting to say that Danny and Sandy break up more times in one movie than your typical soap opera couple in any series’ duration. But something similar happens throughout Beach Blanket Bingo- Frankie and Annette get mad at each other a bunch of time over silly misunderstandings but those things are easily overlooked because they like each other too much to let anything get between them.
All that being said, the way Danny and Sandy break up every other scene gets exhausting about a while. It’s always over something he did and I agree he was in the wrong. But it’d be a little less frustrating if she implicitly explained what he did wrong so he’d know what not to do.

Are you a Sandy or Rizzo? Or both?

One thing that’s kinda interesting about this movie… looking at the dynamic between Sandy and Rizzo, I think it’s an easy assumption to make that all women that identify with one of these characters. Maybe some of them started as a Sandy and turned into Rizzo after getting burned one too many times. Or simply discovered that life comes easier when you’re not naive about it.

“Sandra Dee” is such an iconic scene in this movie from the clothes to the wigs and all the pop culture references of the time. It also burns me up every time I watch it… there’s absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to smoke or drink. And why the hell are teenagers doing with any of that stuff? I never understood that. There are some things people just aren’t comfortable doing and that should be respected.
I guess it’s a testament to female friendships in general that Sandy doesn’t walk out on the slumber party then or doesn’t say to Frenchy that she doesn’t want to hang out with her friends anymore. It’s also classy of Sandy to be supportive of Rizzo when all those rumors are flying around- that’s cool.

I just know if that was me, I’d be so put off by Rizzo I wouldn’t want to hang out with the Pink Ladies anymore. I’m also a bit confused that Frenchy goes along with the “Sandra Dee” sequence at all… one second ago, she was holding her hair back when she was throwing up and the next, it’s perfectly ok to make fun of her.

If that makes me too touchy, then fine. But true friends would love you for who you are and respect those boundaries.

As cool as the makeover/"You're the one that I want" scene is, I’ve always been kinda been put off by it. Like Sandy has to smoke and drink and “put out” to get Danny to love her? He fell in love with her at the beach when she was unapologetically herself. She didn’t need to change anything about her. What kind of message are they trying to send here?

The argument has been thrown around that he changed for her as well. He goes through that funny sports montage just to become a jock for her. But when they met, he wasn’t a T-bird or embodying any sort of persona. He was a guy just like she was just a girl. His issue is that he cares too much about what other people think… so he’s always trying to be something to win people over or to keep his friends.

Both characters have their flaws but I think Danny has a few more flaws than Sandy.

It’s also kinda strange that he “turns jock” by graduation… at the point it doesn’t even matter anymore.

The bandstand scene

Another iconic scene is the American... excuse me... National bandstand scene.

But again, it has flaws and things I plain just don’t get.

I know the hand jive was a big thing back then, but then it morphs completely into something else where I’m asking myself “are they even doing the hand jive anymore?”

I didn’t grow up in the 50s, I don’t know what the heck qualifies for this contest, but it kinda feels like everyone went off script and the bandstand people stopped caring. Reminds me of the Charleston contest scene in “it’s a wonderful life” but aside from one or two other moves they threw in, it’s mostly Charleston.

Then they randomly throw in the wrench of Cha-Cha… my sister always points out how she wins the contest with Danny when she doesn’t even go to that school. The guy Rizzo was with didn’t go there either…

But adding her into the mix was just to get Sandy mad at Danny. I didn’t really get the point.

And Sandy being annoyed with Danny about thinking he and Cha-Cha were going together… why was that such an issue? It’s not like he said Sandy was the first girl he went with. There’s a lot about what happened at the beach that we never get the whole truth about. But even if she was some ex-girlfriend, it shouldn’t even matter anymore.

And why didn’t he just say point blank whether or not she was an ex? Instead of that what if hanging in the air.

It’s also a bit eyebrow raising that Marty is flirting with the bandstand host and he was flirting back. Never mind that the actress playing Marty was probably in her 20s, it still has that ick factor to it.

Despite all these issues, it’s my favorite choreography in this whole movie. It’s not perfect but the duets with Danny are super fun. John Travolta had some really cool moves.

Much ado about 50's slang

Then the final number… first, I wish there was a little more dialogue to wrap things up better. All we get is “tell me about it, stud” and “we’re graduating, what if we never see each other again?”

And the final song is just a bunch of random words that people said (supposedly… like I said, I didn’t live in the 50s) back in the 50s. Like “we go together like ramma-lamma-ding-dong” and a dozen other stupid phrases that mean nothing to me. It’s a fun melody and all that but I can’t get invested if I don’t know what they’re saying.

Then Danny and Sandy drive into the sunset with greased lightning and randomly fly away… the only other ending to a movie that’s more random is the end of Monty python and the holy grail. Just makes no sense. Some people have their theories about it- one of which kinda kills the buzz of the whole movie if you get one to even begin with. But to me, it’s like the writers ran out of ideas and didn’t think anyone would question the choice they made.

—

A few other adjacent topics:

Ages ago, they did a reality show “you’re the one I want” where they’d cast a Sandy and Danny for a Broadway version of Grease. I don’t remember much about it other than the fact I was adamant that a blonde played Sandy. There was a brunette in the final 3 and she might have won… like I said, don’t remember.

On Glee, they did a musical of "Grease" somewhere in the middle of the series after most of the main cast had already graduated. (And people stopped caring about the show so much)

Shy homely Marley (played by future SuperGirl actress Melissa Benoist) won the main role, as it should be. Meanwhile, mean girl Kitty was cast as Patty Simcox, much to her annoyance. (Her reaction was essentially "who the eff is Patty Simcox?"… I honestly didn’t know who she was either. I’d seen the movie at least once prior to Glee. Seeing the movie after Glee did it, I found out. She was kinda like the yearbook girl from Romy & Michelle but a lot more annoying).

And Santana (played by the late Naya Rivera) was perfectly cast as Rizzo cuz she was the residential bitch on Glee I couldn’t stand. Rachel isn’t a perfect angel, but it always bugged me that Santana was the school bully Rachel could never get away from.Sure, she did help her out once or twice in big ways, but she could've done it without so much attitude.

Then FOX (following in NBC’s footsteps) did a live musical of Grease with some good casting. Aaron Trevit from Les Mis was good as Danny. Vanessa Hudgens was amazing as Rizzo. She played Gabriella in high school musical (a movie that’s been regularly compared to Grease) so it was kinda cool seeing her being the anti-Sandy in another lifetime. The live broadcast was the same day her dad passed away and she did really well in those circumstances. And her solo number was easily one of the biggest highlights of the show. It got huge applause from the in-studio audience and she broke character long enough to thank them with a grateful smile.

I just wish they’d cast anyone but Julianne Hough as Sandy. She played a similar character in Rock of Ages so it felt like a lazy casting choice on their part. Plus I was under the impression Taylor Swift was playing Sandy… she might not have had the vocal range to play the role, but she’s still perfect for that role. She’s sweet and wholesome and so many people have given her a hard time for it.
What is so wrong with wholesome that people feel the need to tear others down because of it? I’ll never understand that.

I hate her song “Call Me Maybe” with a passion, but Carly Rae Jepsen was really good as Frenchy. It was also really cool that the original Frenchy played the waitress character that gave her advice back in the movie. A nice little full circle moment.

I also gotta say- it is so sweet that John Travolta and Olivia stayed close friends all these years. Both of their lives went in very different directions, but their adage could easily have been "We'll always have Rydell High."

I'm not sure if I'm the only person who thinks this... but every time I see the animated sequence in the opening credits, part of me really wishes that was the movie we got instead of the live action version. Something about the animation was so iconic of that time period, all those little details. Plus, the title song being sung by Frankie Valli... what's not to love?