Grease

Movies like 1978's GREASE are hard for me to review with any objectivity.  So entwined with my youth is director Randal Kleiser's adaptation of the popular stage musical that even when I watch it with older, narrower eyes, I tend to be myopic to any flaws.  They're there, of course, especially if one really considers the plot line and character dynamics.  Or the risque lyrics.  But those are the words of a cranky middle aged critic.  The movie is flat out fun, and so vibrant and cinematic that even without the considerable nostalgia I harbor for it I have to recognize its merit.

The story follows the lives of high school students (played by much older actors, of course) in the late 1950s.  Typical intrigue about love and popularity.  Being cool or not.  Thwarting authority. Pranks.  Wanting the most badass hot rod.   Danny Zuko (John Travolta) is the leader of the T-Birds, leather jacket wearing greasers forever combing their hair and having drag races.  There are also the Pink Ladies, lead by the tough talking, easy with her virtues Rizzo (Stockard Channing).  Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) is the good girl who spent a sweet, romantic summer before senior year with Danny, but finds that when he's with his gang back at school he's a misogynistic jerk.  Her innocence also make her the target of ridicule by the Pink Ladies, excepting Frenchy (Didi Conn), who wants to drop out and go to Beauty School.

All good fun, but if you let your more mature, critical self consider Bronte Woodward's screenplay, you'll find a movie that basically says it's OK to dump your girlfriend when she thinks she's pregnant but then, whew, take her back when it turns out she isn't!   Or to sell yourself out and become a cigarette puffing bad girl to get the greaser of your dreams.  Oh, the characters do reflect on themselves and their actions at times, but putting your brain in neutral is your best option for GREASE, invisible audience.

And, that soundtrack! I had it and thoroughly absorbed it along with that one for the other Travolta movie, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.  Songs so familiar to me they are indistinguishable from my real life fourth grade memories.  How we snickered when we realized what they were singing during "Greased Lightning"! Klesier and choreographer Patricia Birch bring all of them to life with so much imagination and joy it's impossible not get caught up in them.  Both the uptempo and melancholy tunes.  I have to admit I still get misty while Travolta sings "Sandy" at the drive in in front of the screen while the old "Let's All Go to the Lobby" cartoon plays.  I still find Frankie Avalon's title song a bit odd, though.  Almost like a deconstruction of everything.  Read the lyrics sometime.

GREASE, like SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER is more than a mere movie for me.  It  was and always will be a part of my life, who I am.  It is because of my impressionable age when I first encountered it, but also because it and its ilk always felt larger than life itself.  Filled with an energy and vigor that made them leap off the screen and forever assume a place in my consciousness.