Grease

Grease, American musical film released in 1978 starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta that follows the adventures of a group of high-school students in the late 1950s. Grease is the highest-grossing musical film of the 20th century and is based on, but differs significantly from, the Broadway musical of the same name.

Summary

Teenagers Sandy Olsson (Newton-John) and Danny Zuko (Travolta) meet at the beach in the summer of 1958 and fall in love while Sandy’s family is visiting California on vacation from Australia. When they have to part at the end of the summer, Danny assures a fretful Sandy that “it’s only the beginning.”

A lively animated title sequence by British animator John Wilson of Fine Art Films follows, underscored by the film’s iconic eponymous song (“Grease”), written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and performed by Frankie Valli, lead singer of the Four Seasons. “Grease” expertly combines Valli’s doo-wop crooning with a funky 1970s beat, a nod to both the decade in which the movie is set and the decade in which it was produced. While the song plays, the animation introduces the film’s main characters by depicting their morning routines as they get ready for school.

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Back in the live-action world of the film, it’s the first day of school at Rydell High School, where Danny and his crew of greasers, who call themselves the T-Birds, prepare to start their senior year. The other T-Birds, Kenickie (Jeff Conaway), Doody (Barry Pearl), Sonny (Michael Tucci), and Putzie (Kelly Ward), joke with one another about what they did over their summer break. Danny tells them he met a girl at the beach. At lunchtime, Sandy, now also a student at Rydell, as her parents decided to stay in California, meets the Pink Ladies, a clique of girls that includes Frenchy (Didi Conn), Jan (Jamie Donnelly), and Marty (Dinah Manoff) and is led by the sharp-tongued Rizzo (Stockard Channing); the group exclusively socializes with the T-Birds.

Both the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds demand to hear about Sandy’s and Danny’s summer romances, which they detail in the song “Summer Nights.” Sandy tells the Pink Ladies the name of her summer fling, and they burst into laughter, not telling her that Danny is also a student at Rydell. Later that night at a school pep rally, Rizzo arranges a surprise meeting between Danny and Sandy. Torn between his excitement at seeing Sandy again and his need to protect his tough-guy reputation in front of his friends, Danny publicly snubs Sandy. Frenchy consoles a tearful Sandy and invites her to the Pink Ladies’ sleepover that night to cheer her up.

At the sleepover, Sandy becomes ill from smoking a cigarette, sipping wine, and having Frenchy, an aspiring beautician, pierce her ears. While Sandy is in the bathroom, Rizzo and the other Pink Ladies make fun of her, singing the song “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee.” Sandy catches them mocking her and steps out to the porch to lament her crush on Danny, which she now assumes is unrequited, singing “Hopelessly Devoted to You.”

The next day, the T-Birds gather in the high school’s auto shop to repair recent damage to Kenickie’s beloved jalopy, which had been rear-ended by the leader of a rival gang, the Scorpions. The T-Birds fantasize about turning it into a slick racing car in time for their planned race with the Scorpions, performing the song “Greased Lightnin’.”

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Later on, Danny attempts to transform himself into an athlete to win Sandy back. After he catches Sandy’s attention with his disastrous performance at track practice, Danny apologizes to her, and they go to a diner on a date, which is crashed by the T-Birds and Pink Ladies. Frenchy remains at the diner after her friends depart, and she confesses to a waitress that she’s failing her classes at beauty school. She is then visited in a surreal interlude by the Teen Angel (Frankie Avalon), who encourages her to “turn in your teasin’ comb and go back to high school” in the song “Beauty School Dropout.”

Danny and Sandy arrive together at a big school dance, which is hosted by popular television show National Bandstand and televised as a high-school dance contest. However, Danny goes on to win the dance contest performing with an ex-girlfriend of his, and Sandy storms off.

To make it up to her, Danny takes Sandy on a date to the drive-in theater, where he asks her to wear his ring, which she accepts. He bungles the date, however, by being too pushy in his attempts to initiate physical intimacy, and Sandy leaves on foot. Danny laments her departure in the song “Sandy.” Also at the drive-in, Rizzo confides to Marty that she thinks she might be pregnant. Sonny overhears and spreads the word, which eventually reaches Kenickie, the presumed father. Kenickie confronts Rizzo, who tells him the baby is someone else’s. The next day, as the T-Birds prepare for their race against the Scorpions, Rizzo reflects on her reputation as a fallen woman, performing the song “There Are Worse Things I Could Do.”

At the race, Kenickie gets concussed by his own car door, and Danny is compelled to race in his place. Sandy watches from afar as Danny triumphs over the leader of the Scorpions, and she vows to become the kind of “cool” girlfriend befitting Danny’s tough-guy reputation, enlisting Frenchy’s help to achieve the transformation.

Shortly thereafter, as the school year comes to an end and the Rydell student body celebrates with a carnival, Rizzo joyfully informs Kenickie that her alleged pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm. Sandy debuts her new look, emerging from a crowd sporting permed hair, skintight black leather pants (that Newton-John apparently had to be sewn into), and high heels and smoking a cigarette. Danny swoons over her, and the two sing “You’re the One That I Want.” Conflicts resolved, the cast performs “We Go Together,” and the two lovebirds get into a souped-up car and fly (yes, actually fly) off into the sunset.

Source material

The film is based on the stage musical of the same name written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical premiered at the Kingston Mines Theatre in Chicago in 1971 before opening Off-Broadway in 1972 and moving to Broadway later the same year. Grease was nominated for seven Tony Awards in 1972, including those for best musical, best book of a musical, best choreography, and best costume design. Both Conaway and Travolta performed in the Broadway cast of Grease prior to the musical closing in 1980. Conaway starred as Danny and Travolta played Doody.

Ten of the stage show’s 20 songs were cut or reduced to background music in the film adaptation. Some of those involved in making the show and/or its film adaptation thought that the film turned out to be a sanitized version of the grittier, raunchier stage play.

Production and casting

Grease was directed by Randal Kleiser and filmed during 15 weeks in the summer of 1977 with a $6 million budget. In a 2023 article in The Guardian, actor Kelly Ward, who played T-Bird Putzie, remembered shooting the film as “a summer-long party.” Henry Winkler, who played Fonzie on the popular TV sitcom Happy Days, was originally selected to play Danny, but he declined the role because he did not want to be typecast as a leather jacket–clad ladies’ man. Travolta, who was a longtime friend of the film’s casting director, Joel Thurm, joined the project and advocated for Newton-John to be cast as Sandy. She was concerned that, at 29 years old, she would not be able to convincingly play a teenager. Most of the movie’s principal actors, however, were in their 20s or early 30s, and Thurm was more concerned that they all appear to be of similar ages rather than that they appear to be teenagers.

Legacy

Although Grease initially received mixed reviews, the film was a huge commercial success. It was the highest-grossing film of 1978 and the highest-grossing musical film of the entire 20th century, bringing in $182 million domestically and $387 million worldwide. In addition, the stage show has spawned more than 123,000 productions worldwide, cementing its status as a global cultural phenomenon. The stage show returned to Broadway in 1994 and 2007.

The soundtrack for Grease became one of the most popular original film soundtrack albums of all time, eventually selling more than 30 million copies worldwide. The hit songs “Grease” and “You’re the One That I Want” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “Summer Nights” peaked at number three and five, respectively. The film spawned a sequel, Grease 2 (1982), which is directed by Patricia Birch (who served as the choreographer for Grease and its original stage production) and stars Michelle Pfeiffer. Grease also inspired the musical television series Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (2023), which is set four years before the events in Grease.

Production notes and credits

• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Randal Kleiser
• Producers: Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood
• Screenplay: Bronte Woodard
• Based on the original musical by: Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
• Running time: 110 minutes

Cast

• John Travolta (Danny)
• Olivia Newton-John (Sandy)
• Stockard Channing (Rizzo)
• Jeff Conaway (Kenickie)
• Barry Pearl (Doody)
• Michael Tucci (Sonny)
• Kelly Ward (Putzie)
• Didi Conn (Frenchy)
• Jamie Donnelly (Jan)
• Dinah Manoff (Marty)
• Eve Arden (Principal McGee)
• Frankie Avalon (Teen Angel)
• Sid Caesar (Coach Calhoun)
• Dody Goodman (Blanche)
• Susan Buckner (Patty Simcox)
• Lorenzo Lamas (Tom Chisum)
• Fannie Flagg (Nurse Wilkins)