Love, Musicals: Grease (Dir Randal Kleiser, 1h50m, 1978)

Popular culture seems to constantly repeat itself. For example 1990s cinema is dotted with adaptions and remakes of 1960s TV series, and 1990s films looking back at the 1960s (like 1993's Dazed and Confused). The 60s also came back with a vengance in the 1980s on radio, but the 1980s also saw Elvis-mania take hold. Before this, the 1970s fascination with the 1950s began with American Graffiti (1973), George Lucas' homage to 50s hot rods, but few films encapsules a 1970s view of the 1950s like Grease, adapting the 1972 stage musical in all its kitsch greaser glory, subtlety be damned.

John Travolta appears on screen a few seconds into Grease's charming, if knowing recreation of From Here to Eternity (1954), his character, greaser Danny Zuko running hand in hand on a beach with Olivia Newton-John's Aussie exchange student, Sandy Olsson. By 1978, both of them were successful in their fields; Newton-John had already released nine records, represented the UK at Eurovision, sparked controversary among American country fans, and appeared in three films, most notably enjoyably naff alien-abducts-band Val Guest venture, Toomorrow (1970), written by The Monkees' creator, Don Kirshner. John Travolta, meanwhile, had exploded into cinemas with Saturday Night Fever (1977), alongside minor roles in Carrie (1976), and a starring role in the school sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter (1975-1979). Grease would make them superstars.

Grease is the Word: Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) and Danny (John Travolta)

Grease's narrative is not what we have really come to see; it is, in all senses, a means to an end, its end being several lavish musical numbers and a hot-rod race. Whilst the bones of the musical remain; the main narrative of boy meets girl, girl and boy fall out with each other, and slowly change to win each other back, is still there, much of the original stage production's edge, its focus upon teenage issues, from peer pressure to teenage pregnancy to gang violence is either completely removed from the film, or toned down. From that beach sequence, Danny and Sandy return to school: from here, we are introduced to Danny's gang of fellow greasers, leather jacket wearing delinquents the T Birds, led by Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) and otherwise including Barry Pearl, Michael Tucci and Kelly Ward, whilst Sandy, the new transfer student, is almost immediately taken under the wing of greaser clique The Pink Ladies, led by Betty Rizzo (Stockard Channing), the rest of the group comprising Didi Conn, Jamie Donnelly and Dinah Manoff.

With the two groups learning of Danny and Sandy's summer romance, so an attempted reunion sours with Danny's outlaw posturing alienating Sandy, who pours her heart out to the Pink Ladies, as they, in turn, attempt to initiate her into their rough and tumble lifestyle. Danny goes through a period of soul-searching, forced to choose between impressing Sandy in the scholastic world, and his greaser lifestyle. All of this comes smartly to a head with the T Birds' rivalry with the rival Scorpions gang (one of several groups of characters who look about a decade too old to be in school), whilst the relationship between Kenickie and Betty at turns juxtaposes and compliments that of Danny and Sandy, albeit with a more mature sensibility. Its narrative thread is, whilst cribbing the contents of about half a dozen B-Movie romances, a teenage love and coming of age story on which to hang Grease's true attractions.

Rockin' and rollin' and whatnot: Grease is dominated by its catchy, campy, musical numbers

Whilst Grease's theme is  a film about being a teenager in the 1950s, where its loyalties truly lie is in celebrating the music, and musical culture of this decade; this Grease does with aplomb. From its very first number, the boisterous Summer Nights, in which Danny and Sandy's perspectives on the summer before switch back and forth, the film's energy lifting by degrees each time one of these choreographed numbers features in the film; it is also here where Travolta and Newton-John are at their best, where their rapport with their respective camps is at its strongest. Like many Broadway musicals, Grease's musical moments, apart from the Bandstand performance that contains a climatic showdown between Danny, Sandy and rival gang moll, Cha-Cha, which itself showcases the film's choreography, are moments of heightened emotion. We see the excitement of the T Birds building a roadster from a wreck in "Greased Lightnin'", whilst "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" fleshes out the Pink Ladies.

Yet, this is not merely the music, and the "feel" of the 1950s placed wholesale into the 1970s: things are refracted with a campy sensibility; this is a caricature, if the opening titles, cut to Barrie Gibb's "Grease" didn't tip you off; the cars are colossal-the leader of the Scorpions is a scowling lunatic who drives a fire-breathing car- the college football team are perenial losers, the local cafe colossally scaled, the presenter of Bandstand a sleazy lothario, his talent a washed up rock star that could have been played by Elvis-who died before he was approached. This is twenty years in the past, dimly remembered, and caricatured to outlandish proportions.  This is the 1950s remembered by the 1970s, a slab of joyfully, unapologetically cheesey Americana.

Rating: Recommended

Grease is available in the UK via streaming on Amazon Prime, and on DVD from  ‎ Paramount Home Entertainment, on streaming in the US via AppleTV, and on BluRay from  ‎ Paramount Home Entertainment

Next week, to the crowning achievement of the Disney Renaissance, in 1991's tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast.