Revivial of the disco 50s
By Alan Levine
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There comes a time in every man’s life when he must change that is, grow up. John Travolta’s time is long past and he shows no evidence of having grown up. He is no longer convincing as a high school teenager, now that he has moved from his early to mid-twenties. And besides, the sweathog act is becoming boring.
Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, is a dainty bit of flirty fun.
There is lots of “Oh wow wasn’t it great to be a teenage deadbeat back in the fifties,” and the whole current nostalgia bit is played to the hilt. For this kind of en tertainment, Grease is a pleasing and enjoyable evening at the cinema.
As a musical film, Grease is lively in song, instrumentation and dance. Vocals are strong, accurate and pure; and the choreography adds an almost flawless animation to the musical numbers.
What is puzzling, however, is why the producers felt the need to modify the fifties style music to a contemporary mutation which may be called “disco-fifties.”
Actually, this decision is quite understandable from the perspective of the movie merchandisers. Profits from the sale of soundtracks and related items make up no small percentage of the film’s earnings. So in order to amplify sales in this area, the producers made sure that they could cash in on the disco cult which grew out of Travolta’s last film, Saturday Night Fever. This writer sadly announces the death of film for film’s sake.
There are a few other interesting aspects of Grease. The setting is unmistakably California, but most of the characters are clearly from the less desirable areas of New York City. They seem to have been plucked from Kotter’s classroom and dumped in sunny California. What purpose can this possibly serve?
Like Travolta, Miss Newton-John is a little hard to swallow as a teenager. The signs of middle age which surround the eyes show, through her make up, that she is at least 10 years older than high school.
Fair Olivia’s angel voice is the saving grace tor Grease, even if she is moving in to the thirties neighborhood. Her vocal control and articulation is perhaps the best in popular music today, and hearing it throughout most of the film makes Grease worth going to all by itself.