“When are we going to watch a movie I want to see?”

            Kim is right. Kim and Cary’s Movies Revisited have centered around me (Cary), as this project was my idea. Additionally, I saw more movies than she did during our adolescence. I do cherish her input and opinion as we revisit these things, or for the first time. Kim had the DVD.

            I have not seen Grease. Why? I appreciate and respect the art form, but I am NOT a fan of musicals. It’s not my thing, and if you like them, that is great. I find the way men dance in such things awkward and disturbing. As our viewing approached, I knew that at some point I would see Olivia Newton-John in leather pants and I can handle that.

Every man, five to ten years older and younger than I, had a thing for her. You didn’t? Liar.

            Grease is a ‘musical romantic comedy” (which says RUNAWAY! to me.) It is set in a late-fifties high school, Rydell High. As you know, the star is John Travolta (alum of Welcome Back Kotter), fresh off the success of Saturday Night Fever. Initially set for the stage, it has been converted into the silver screen. Coincidentally, a young, budding New Jersey actor played in it on Broadway, but not in the role of Danny Zuko. Travolta’s mom was in entertainment and sent him to drama school in New York for him to learn to act, dance and sing.

            Australian singer Miss Newton-John was a popular singer of country and pop. The producer, fellow Aussie Robert Stigwood, did many movies back then with a musical nature and there may have been a connection there. Some of his work isn’t bad, and some are um, well just don’t. Her parents have an interesting background especially her father if curious. 

            The film began with a man and woman at the beach and Kim immediately said “watch this part.” It was the two starts at the beach, in a setting I didn’t expect from the videos most people have seen. They were sadly parting. A cartoon intro with the song Grease is the Word with Frankie Valli singing and not hitting those familiar high notes. Next, it’s the first day of school at Rydell High. The cast is stereotypically dressed in guys in leather jackets with ‘greased’ hair (pun intended) and the girls in poodle skirts. Kim wasn’t sure she went to high school in the Reagan, not Eisenhower, years.

            Sandy (ONJ) is the cute, innocent girl who transferred here from down under. She looks the part, despite being twenty-eight during filming. Travolta was twenty-three. The girls are the Pink Ladies, and the boys are the T-Birds. There is a woman principal which must have been rare at the time, but the only female principal I worked under was the best we had. Kudos, Mrs. Rudy.

            When they show the PE teacher/coach, I am perplexed! Who is that guy? It is comedian Sid Caesar, a brilliant comedian with a sixty-year career. He was the first male television star in the early fifties. Back to the plot, eventually, Sandy is introduced to Danny, who thought she had gone back home. He is stunned, then tries to act cool for his friends and now we have the story with a bunch of songs. Sorry, my sarcasm cannot be repressed.       

            About now, I asked Kim, “So what do you think?” “I didn’t think I had to comment on this, I just watch them,” Channeling Chad from SNL, “OK.”

            There are girls sneaking wine in a pink bedroom and guys driving around Schlitz beer. Ick. Rizzo (played by Stockard Channing) is the bad girl. I thought Rizzo was a first baseman. There is a place where people park and an expected conflict. In Michigan City that placed was called Fedder’s Alley and “your honor, I would like to invoke my First Amendment rights please.” All the guys are wearing high top black canvas Converse sneakers which popular girls did the last several years of my career.

            “He was so skinny then,” Kim says of Travolta. Yeah, we all were. I had a six pack until I discovered another kind. He sings, and well, he never won a Grammy award did he? Danny tried out for sports but ends up frustrated and fighting. He does a song and dance with a car in the auto shop that I could have skipped. I took a Theater class my senior year in high school, and the teacher, Mr. Troyer, told me that in the class play, I would be a dancer and would have to buy tights. I told him, “Um, two things. One, I do not dance, and I sure as hell aren’t wearing tights. I opened the curtain and hung out with the hottest girl in the class, who did nothing.

            The movie builds to an appearance on National Bandstand, a clear rip-off of American Bandstand. Their Dick Clark was creepy and spoke in rhymes. All the kids posed for the camera in black and white TV set, then Danny and Sandy danced. Another woman named Cha Cha butts in making Sandy cry and leave.

            Near the end is a drag race in an LA sewer ditch called Thunder Road. Wrong name, Thunder Road is my favorite song. Danny had to drive after his friend is knocked out by a car door. He wins, and  Sandy is happy. Kim noted how ugly the other driver was.

            Finally, its graduation and they have something like a carnival or fair. They are all saying goodbyes, when Danny sees Sandy with hair made up, leather pants, and then they sing “You’re the One That I Want.” Most people know the video and that song, which isn’t horrible, will stick in your brain like peanut butter on the roof of a dog’s mouth. Olivia was smoking, and I’m not talking cigarettes. When they fly away in a car Kim said “It just puts a smile on your face.”

            The film was not as bad as I thought. Kim concluded “John Travolta was hot in that show

and Olivia Newton-John of course was hot too and it just made me happy.”  She gave it an eight. This was the highest grossing musical when released and the soundtrack was one of the best selling albums of all time.

            Now here in 2025, Ms. Newton-John has passed and Mr. Travolta is bald.