With the possible exception of Jaws, Lou has seen Grease more than any other movie. In his youth, it was on HBO and Prism every hour on the hour, and Lou watched it every time. It is one of those movies that if you catch it after it has started you have to sit down and watch it to the end. And Lou did. Repeatedly.
The best scene in Grease is the American Bandstand inspired set piece in the gym of Rydell High. Edd “Kookie” Byrnes kills it as “Dick Clark”. And Annette Charles as Chi-Chi DiGregorio, the trash Rita Moreno is stellar. Lou always loves watching Craterface’s hair flop around and, of course, all the dance sequences. The wink-winks to Saturday Night Fever as Danny Zuko dominates the dance floor are much appreciated. But Sha-Na-Na steals the show. They are fantastic. If you haven’t done so, watch them do “At the Hop” at Woodstock. Strike Lou down if they are not proto-punk. They smoke. Bowser killed Sha-Na-Na because that was when they sent the fat guy in the band to the fishes. TV adds ten pounds and the powers that be could not have a fatty on screen. He was the true spirit of the group.
Young Lou was a Sandy guy. The bad-girl Sandy in the closing scene that is. Lou wonders if the transformation of Sandy from goodie-goodie to sexpot inspired Sheena Easton to hook up with Prince and record “Sugar Walls”. Food for thought. In fifth grade, Lee Ann (last name withheld) was Sandy. “What you gonna do about it, stud?” Whelp!!! Wonder where she is now. I would expect that Olivia Newton-John was the crush of many a young man in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Beside Grease, Lou mostly remembers her from the video for “Physical”, which may be one of the gayest videos ever. Aerobics might be the theme, but it is straight from the bathhouse. I don’t think Alaska has more bears than that video. She is a gay icon. As I said, Olivia was the crush for many a young man.
Grease was a monster hit, the movie and the soundtrack. In 1980, they tried to do it again with Xanadu. The plot is so convoluted that Lou has never quite wrapped his head around it. Wonder why? Douglas Carter Beane, who wrote the book for the musical based on the film, has an idea: Xanadu is “what happens when you let straight men near the musical . . . I blame cocaine. It's like people say, 'When you hear Ray Charles play, you can hear the heroin?' When you watch Xanadu, you can see the cocaine up on the screen." Over the years, Xanadu has become a cult classic, but when it came out it was the type of movie the Golden Raspberry awards were created for. No, really. John J.B. Wilson came up with the idea for The Golden Raspberries in 1980 to deal with the experience of a crap double feature that showed Xanadu and Can’t Stop the Music, the musical biopic of The Village People, back to back. Xanadu was that bad. It may have killed Gene Kelly out of embarrassment. It was his last film. FYI: Sylvester Stallone has won twelve Razzies.
The soundtrack for Xanadu was another story. That was a smash. One side was Olivia, and the other side was Electric Light Orchestra. The album reached number four on the Billboard charts and went double platinum. There were five top-20 singles. Lou is partial to “Magic”, which spent four weeks at number one on Billboard. Not to beat a dead horse, but late at night in his cups (what can Lou say, he drinks late at night often), Lou watches Olivia sing “Magic” on what might be Dutch television. Olivia’s shorts are magic.
“Xanadu”, the title track with Olivia and ELO, was a big hit as well. It reached number eight, number one adult contemporary, and number one in the UK. Lou can take it or leave it. Kinda like ELO. There are huge ELO fans out there, Lou’s brother-in-law is one of them. He has good taste as he hates Rush but he loses Lou on ELO. ELO and ELP. No bueno. Elf with Ronnie James Dio is more like it. But Vinyl Vogue has a white label promo of the 45 of “Xanadu” if you are interested. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “Kubla Khan” in a drug haze, he was a big opium guy. Lou has always said that opiates make better art than cocaine. The difference in quality between “Kubla Khan”and “Xanadu” proves that. Coleridge wrote a true banger.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
Dance Contest in Grease: Grease Prom Dance - Hound Dog - Born to Hand Jive - Sha-Na-Na
Punk at Woodstock: Sha-Na-Na Live @ Woodstock 1969 At The Hop .mpg
Olivia in the bathhouse: Olivia Newton-John - Physical (Official Music Video)
In short, Olivia is magic: Olivia Newton John - Magic
— Lou Waxman