High School Was Never Like This...Too Bad

Rating: 8/10 (31 May 2016)

A jukebox musical that redefined its genre and has lasted well beyond all expectations, "Grease" is easy to dismiss on the basis of its simplistic story and characterizations that never rise above stereotypes. But it is also a galvanizing entertainment that works.
Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) are high-school kids who meet at the beach one summer, not knowing that they will be seeing a lot more of each other next fall at Rydell High School. Danny runs with a tough crowd, while Sandy is a sweet and wholesome girl whose affections threaten to hold him down and make him look weak in front of his pals.
"I got this image, right?" he tells her. Like many high schoolers, the characters in "Grease" are all about their image, only few ever looked as good worrying about it as these guys do.
The unlikely triumph that is "Grease" is often ascribed to its soundtrack, which includes a number of recognizable hits still familiar nearly 40 years after the movie's release. But the film's place as a cult favorite is as attributable to two other, related things: tone and balance.
Director Randal Kleiser took a fairly rough and raunchy Broadway musical and reinvented it as a paean for Hollywood nostalgia. An opening cartoon, primitively animated, effectively sets up the rest of the film as a gaudy, goofy take on growing up, with plenty of sex jokes that somehow manage to maintain an overarching aura of innocence. Serious topics are introduced, but in a way that never drags down the light tone.
The musical numbers are the highlights, mostly ensemble pieces that include two of its biggest hits, the opening "Summer Nights" and the closing "You're The One That I Want," both staged with the kind of lavish choreography and tight camera-work that rewards multiple viewings. Kleiser favors long mid-shots with sharp cuts, which works because there's a lot going on and the syncopation is what sells it.
Yet for the purposes of emotional investment, the two best numbers, surprisingly, are solo ballads: Travolta's "Sandy" and "There Are Worse Things I Can Do," sung by the school's make-out queen, Rizzo (Stockard Channing), both of which achieve an intimacy that gives "Grease" a kind of power. I get a lump in my throat whenever I watch a hot dog jump into a bun in the former number that has nothing to do with the double entendre involved.
The dialogue, by producer Allan Carr and Bronte Woodard, offers pretty silly banter in place of story for the most part, yet like the songs it keeps the energy moving and the energy light. "Grease" is motion, like the Frankie Valli song says, and that's what you get.
Even the dead-end scenes that clog the film's middle, regarding a pep rally for a big football game we never see and Danny's varsity sports tryouts only referenced briefly again at the end, don't tax your viewing patience. You enjoy the changes of pace while the scenery is being moved offstage for the next big number. "Grease" captures a sense of being young, with its heady enthusiasm and eagerness to please. It's a shame the formula seems so difficult to repeat.