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Grease (film)

Grease is a 1978 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Bronté Woodard and an adaptation by co-producer Allan Carr, based on the stage musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.[3] The film depicts the lives of greaser Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Australian transfer student Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John), who develop an attraction for each other during a summer romance.

Grease

  • Allan Carr Enterprises[1]
  • Stigwood Group[1]

  • June 16, 1978 (1978-06-16)

110 minutes

United States

English

$6 million[2]

$396.3 million[2]

Grease was released in the United States on June 16, 1978, by Paramount Pictures. The film was successful both critically and commercially, becoming the highest-grossing musical film at the time.[4] Its soundtrack album ended 1978 as the second-best-selling album of the year in the United States, only behind the soundtrack of the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, which also starred Travolta,[5] and the song "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 51st Academy Awards. The film also received five nominations at the 36th Golden Globe Awards, including for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and two for Best Original Song, for "Grease" and "You're the One that I Want". In 2020, Grease was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[6][7]


A sequel, Grease 2, was released in 1982, starring Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer as a newer class of greasers. Few of the original cast members reprised their roles. As of 2023, a short-lived prequel television series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, debuted on Paramount+, with a prequel film, titled Summer Lovin', currently in production.[8][9]

Plot[edit]

In the summer of 1958, local boy Danny Zuko and vacationing Australian Sandy Olsson meet at the beach and fall in love. When the summer comes to an end, Sandy frets that they may never meet again, but Danny tells her that their love is "only the beginning".


At the start of the seniors' term at Rydell High School, Danny resumes his role as leader of the T-Birds greaser gang consisting of Doody, Sonny, Putzie, and his best friend Kenickie. Sandy's parents remain in America and enroll Sandy at Rydell where she meets greaser girl clique the Pink Ladies consisting of Frenchy, Marty, Jan and leader Rizzo.


Danny and Sandy recount their brief romance to their groups, Sandy recalling a romantic summer and Danny implying a more physical experience. When Sandy finally says Danny's name, Rizzo arranges a surprise reunion at a pep rally where Sandy meets Tom, a jock, and Kenickie unveils his new used car, Greased Lightnin', which he plans on street racing after a restoration. Caught between his feelings and his bad-boy reputation, Danny snubs Sandy in front of his gang and she becomes upset.


At a Pink Ladies pajama party, Sandy falls ill from drinking, trying a cigarette, and having her ears pierced by Frenchy. Rizzo, after mocking Sandy's wholesome and chaste personality, departs for sex with Kenickie in his car, during which their condom breaks; they are disturbed by Leo, leader of the rival gang, the Scorpions, and his girlfriend Cha-Cha. After the slumber party comes to an end, Sandy realizes she still loves Danny after all.


The next day, Danny apologizes to Sandy for having brushed her off the previous night and, with Coach Calhoun's help, becomes a runner and successfully wins her back from Tom. However, their friends crash their date, and Kenickie and Rizzo break up after an argument. After a disastrous beauty class leaves Frenchy with candy-pink hair, she drops out of beauty school and reluctantly returns to Rydell to complete her high-school education.


During the school dance, broadcast live on National Bandstand and hosted by DJ Vince Fontaine, Rizzo and Kenickie spite each other by bringing Leo and Cha-Cha as their dates. In a chaotic hand jive contest, Danny and Sandy dance well, but just before the winners are announced, Sonny pulls Sandy away and Cha-Cha cuts in to win with Danny, as Sandy storms out.


Danny tries to make it up to Sandy by taking her to a drive-in theater, but a more direct and pushy advance causes Sandy to flee in horror. Rizzo fears she is pregnant after missing a period and confides in Marty, who tells Sonny, who inadvertently spreads the rumor to the apparent father Kenickie, though Rizzo denies it to him.


On race day, Kenickie is concussed by his own car door, so Danny takes the wheel, winning the race after Leo spins out. Sandy, watching from afar and rejoicing for Danny's victory, concludes she still loves him and enlists Frenchy's help in changing her attitude and looks to impress him.


On the last day of school, Rizzo finds she is not pregnant and reunites with Kenickie. At a carnival, Danny and Sandy each find they have changed for each other: Danny has become a letterman, and Sandy a greaser girl. The two depart in the Greased Lightnin' car, which takes flight into the sky.

as Danny Zuko

John Travolta

as Sandy Olsson

Olivia Newton-John

Release[edit]

Grease was originally released in the United States on June 16, 1978, and was an immediate box-office success. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $8,941,717 in 862 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking at number 2 (behind Jaws 2) at the box office for the weekend[32] and with the all-time opening weekend records.[33] Despite losing the opening weekend, it topped the box office the following weekend with a gross of $7,867,000 and set a record gross in its first 19 days, with $40,272,000.[34][35] After 66 days, it had grossed $100 million to become Paramount's second-highest-grossing film, behind The Godfather, and ended its initial run with a gross of $132,472,560,[36][37] which made it the highest-grossing film in 1978.[38]


In the United States and globally, it became the highest-grossing musical ever at the time, eclipsing the 13-year-old record held by The Sound of Music, with a worldwide gross of $341 million.[4]


In the United Kingdom, it opened with a record $2.2 million in its first eight days.[39] It went on to become the highest-grossing film in the UK, with a gross of £14.7 million.[40]


It was re-released May 18, 1979, in 1,248 theatres in the United States and Canada (except for the New York City area, where it opened a week later), Paramount's biggest ever saturation release at the time, grossing $4.5 million in its opening weekend.[36][37] The film played for four weeks and was then paired with the PG-rated version of Saturday Night Fever in late June.[37] During the reissue, it overtook The Godfather as Paramount Pictures' highest-grossing film.[41] It was re-released in March 1998 for its 20th anniversary, where it grossed a further $28 million in the United States and Canada.[2]


It remained the highest-grossing live-action musical until 2012 when it was overtaken by Les Misérables,[42] and it remained the US champion until 2017 when it was surpassed by Beauty and the Beast.[43] Discounting inflation, Grease is now the seventh-highest-grossing live-action musical worldwide.[42]


A further re-issue for its 40th anniversary in 2018 grossed $1 million.[2] To date, Grease has grossed $189,969,103 domestically and $206.2 million internationally, totaling $396 million worldwide.[2] Another re-issue took place in select AMC Theatres locations in August 2022 to honor Olivia Newton-John following her death earlier that month, with $1 per sold ticket and the proceeds going to breast cancer research, through a donation by AMC Cares.[44] Similarly, in the UK, selected Merlin Cinemas venues also reissued the film during August, but partnered with Macmillan Cancer Support, with a contribution of £1 per ticket sold.

Reception[edit]

Grease received mostly positive reviews from film critics[45] and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1978.[46][47][48][49]


The New York Times' Vincent Canby, on its initial release in June 1978, called the film "terrific fun", describing it as a "contemporary fantasy about a 1950s teen-age musical—a larger, funnier, wittier and more imaginative-than-Hollywood movie with a life that is all its own"; Canby pointed out that the film was "somewhat in the manner of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which recalls the science-fiction films of the '50s in a manner more elegant and more benign than anything that was ever made then, Grease is a multimillion-dollar evocation of the B-picture quickies that Sam Katzman used to turn out in the '50s (Don't Knock the Rock, 1956) and that American International carried to the sea in the 1960s (Beach Party, 1963)."[50]


Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "exciting only when John Travolta is on the screen" but still recommending it to viewers, adding, "Four of its musical numbers are genuine showstoppers that should bring applause."[51] Variety praised the "zesty choreography and very excellent new plus revived music", and thought Travolta and Newton-John "play together quite well."[52] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was negative, writing, "I didn't see Grease onstage, but on the testimony of this strident, cluttered, uninvolving and unattractive movie, it is the '50s—maybe the last innocent decade allowed to us—played back through a grotesquely distorting '70s consciousness."[53]


Gary Arnold of The Washington Post also panned the film, writing, "Despite the obvious attempts to recall bits from Stanley Donen musicals or Elvis Presley musicals or Frankie-and-Annette musicals, the spirit is closer to the New Tastelessness exemplified by Ken Russell, minus Russell's slick visual style ... I've never seen an uglier large-scale musical."[54]


David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "Too often, Grease is simply mediocre, full of broad high-school humor, flat dramatic scenes and lethargic pacing. Fortunately, there's nothing flat about John Travolta ... Travolta can't dominate this movie as he did Fever, but when he's on screen you can't watch anyone else."[55]


Retrospective reviews have generally been positive. In a 1998 review, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "an average musical, pleasant and upbeat and plastic." He found John Travolta's Elvis Presley–inspired performance to be the highlight, but felt that Grease "sees the material as silly camp."[56] In 2018, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave it 5 out of 5 stars, saying "It's still a sugar-rush of a film."[57]


Grease was voted the best musical ever on Channel 4's 100 greatest musicals in 2004.[58] On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 66% approval rating based on 156 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Word is, Grease stars an electrifying John Travolta while serving up some '50s kitsch in a frenetic adaptation that isn't always the one that we want."[59] On Metacritic, it holds a score of 70 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[45]


The film was ranked number 21 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.[60][61]

—No. 97

AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions

—No. 70 for "Summer Nights"

AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs

—No. 20

AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals

Legacy[edit]

Sequel[edit]

Grease 2 (1982) stars Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer. While several of the Rydell High staff characters reprise their roles, the sequel focused on the latest class of graduating seniors, hence most of the principals from Grease did not appear. Patricia Birch, the original film's choreographer, directed the sequel. The original musical's cocreator Jim Jacobs, who was not involved in the making of Grease 2, has disowned the film.

Sing-along version[edit]

On July 8, 2010, a sing-along version of Grease was released to selected theaters around the U.S.[66] A trailer was released in May 2010, with cigarettes digitally removed from certain scenes, implying heavy editing; however, Paramount confirmed these changes were done only for the film's advertising,[67] and the rating for the film itself changed from its original PG to that of PG-13 (as that rating had not been introduced until 1984) for "sexual content including references, teen smoking and drinking, and language."[68] The film was shown for two weekends only; additional cities lobbied by fans from the Paramount official website started a week later and screened for one weekend.[69]


On May 15, 2020, it was announced that CBS, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS, which also owns Paramount, would air this version of the film on June 7, 2020, which was to be the date of the 74th Tony Awards, which was postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.[70]

Prequel[edit]

In March 2019, it was announced that a prequel, called Summer Lovin', was in development from Paramount Players. The project would be a joint-production collaboration with Temple Hill Productions and Picturestart. John August signed on to serve as screenwriter.[9]

at IMDb

Grease

at AllMovie

Grease

at Box Office Mojo

Grease

at Rotten Tomatoes

Grease

at the TCM Movie Database

Grease