The musical genre was in the basement during the seventies, eighties, and nineties, until the apparent renaissance of such films like Moulin Rouge and Chicago. Back in the good old days, all sorts of musicals were hits, and award-winners, and even in the 1960’s, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and Oliver! were huge Oscar winners. But these movies turned out to be the last gasp of a popular genre -- more “realistic” movies, and the counter culture movement, created an environment where bursting into song seemed more than fanciful, but ridiculous. It’s interesting to note that the last movie musical to win many Oscars was the great, but grim and pessimistic Cabaret, by Bob Fosse, in 1972.

But, there were a few musicals that managed to make an impact even while the genre lay dormant. One of those movies was Grease, from 1978, starring John Travolta, who already took the world by storm with Saturday Night Fever, and Olivia Newton-John, a singing star in her first major film role. The film also starred Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, and many others.

The film is set in the fifties, when rock and roll was just getting started. As the movie begins, the summer is nearly at a close, and Travolta and Newton-John regretfully end their summer romance. Travolta is going back to high school for his graduating year, while Newton-John is supposed to be going back to school in her native Australia.

Back at the high school, Travolta reverts back to his old self as one of a group of greasers who act cool and macho toward each other, and who act dismissive and crass towards the women, who nevertheless, as it seems to be in real life sometimes, idolize these supposedly wild men. Well, imagine Travolta’s shock when he finds out that his summer love is now going to the same high school -- her family apparently decided not to go back to Australia.

This would be great, you would think -- but Travolta’s character has an image to maintain. He feels that he has to maintain this macho veneer, even in front of his summer fling. Newton-John isn’t impressed at all, and for a while, goes out with a jock, as well as finding some solace with the “Pink Ladies”, a clique headed by Stockard Channing. But, more quickly than I expected, the two start dating again, although, in this high school environment, it’s hard to see eye-to-eye on a few things, especially since the woman wants to be prim and proper, while the man wants to score.

Along the way, we get some glimpse of pop culture of the 1950’s. Sockhops. A parody of American Bandstand, with an adult host who gives off the impression of being the world’s oldest teenager. Fifties pop-rock. Teenagers making out in their cars. Cliques, such as the jocks, the cheerleaders, the greasers, etc. All of these elements are quite fun to watch in a somewhat innocent way -- it’s amusing to see how things have changed, as nowadays, things are depicted in a much more gritty way. Here, the worst thing is during the car race when the bad guy’s car has a few secret weapons that will hopefully slow down the hero’s car, as well as put to waste all the work that went into restoring it. How shocking!

As a movie, Grease isn’t any big shakes -- the storyline is as fluffy as you’d expect. The script is more like a sitcom, and the writing isn’t nearly as good as that in My Fair Lady or Cabaret, although I, at least, was more entertained by this than I was with The King and I, but that’s just from my own personal experience. Story-wise, Grease also doesn’t hold up compared to the movie that made Travolta a star -- Saturday Night Fever. The realism and occasional brutality of that movie is softened considerably for this one. Grease is sort of like an extended episode of the Wonder Years, with songs, and minus the treacly narration and a sappy moral. The film is meant to be cute, more than anything.

........ although cute in this universe seems to involve some pretty outdated and crazy beliefs. The ending is pretty funny, because the moral of the story seems to be that a woman ought to dress in tight leather and act sexy and loose in order to fit in, and that it’s no good to be modest and pure like Sandra Dee or Doris Day. At least it does help in creating a good visual during the last musical number, as the couple actually look like halves of a whole, instead of a teenage version of a culture clash. But, still, what sort of morality are we in here.....?

Well, I guess 1950’s morality. The movie shows us that teenagers, far from being smart, are pretty dopey. The men and women don’t treat each other like people -- they aren’t able to understand each other at all. The women spend half the time telling each other that men are rats, and the other half trying to gain their affections, while the men talk locker-room talk to each other when they’re not trying to get into the women’s pants, while the general milieu is that women are either seen as virginal or sluts -- basically, it’s Saturday Night Fever Lite, in which this environment is seen as silly rather than brutal (in that movie, Travolta just comes out and says that you’re either a good girl or a “c-nt.”). Obviously, the movie is a spoof of 50’s pop culture, so it would be pointless to be offended. I just thought I’d bring that up for your edification!

The songs are quite entertaining little pop songs -- from the title tune sung by Frankie Valli to the songs sung by the cast, such as “Summer Dreams”, “You’re the One that I Want”, “Greased Lightening”, and others. As with many musicals, the songs are the high point, as they should be. Some of the musical numbers are essentially fantasies for the benefit of we, the viewers, such as when Frankie Avalon sings “Beauty School Drop-Out”, or when Travolta and the guys sing “Greased Lightening” at the car shop, which suddenly turns into an outtake from an Elvis movie (or, at least that was what I was thinking -- haven’t seen too many Elvis films......). As well, we get Stockard Channing’s little put-down of Newton-John’s goody-two-shoes character in “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee”

No surprise -- all of the actors are too old for their roles. None of these people look like teenagers. Stockard Channing is in this film, for god’s sake! She was 34 years old -- in 1978! And Jeff Conaway? Those people were probably older in 1978 than I am now! And yet they are playing 17 year olds. Of course, most of the actors in this film were from the original Broadway cast, so there’s nothing wrong with having them in the movie, despite their age. If this were a regular movie, seeing twenty and thirty year old actors play teenagers would be painful to the eyes, but, somehow, in a musical, it doesn’t seem to matter that much to me.

Overall, while I’m happy to have finally viewed this pop culture phenomena, and the songs are good in that tacky pop song kind of way, Grease is not the classic musical that it could have been. It is still pretty good, though, and certainly wouldn’t have been out of place during the Golden Era of musicals. And if Chicago becomes as big a movie as it appears to be, maybe we’ll be seeing a little bit of a film-musical renaissance, which wouldn’t be so bad.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie