{"id":759,"date":"2018-04-05T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T22:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicallradio.com\/articles\/?p=759"},"modified":"2019-03-28T16:24:41","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T15:24:41","slug":"grease-40-years-prom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicallradio.com\/articles\/en_US\/2018\/04\/05\/grease-40-years-prom\/","title":{"rendered":"Grease: 40 Years of Prom"},"content":{"rendered":"

As soon as the flattering 90th<\/sup>\u00a0Birthday of the prestigious American Academy award was celebrated and all the fuss surrounding it started to slowly cool down, we\u2019re nearing another film jubilee which will, I believe, put a smile on many people\u2019s faces. We are referring to the Rendal Kleiser\u2019s musical\u00a0\u201cGrease\u201d<\/em>, which was filmed 40 years ago! Regardless of whether you or your parents –\u00a0\u00a0that might have seen it in its \u201coriginal\u201d\u00a0<\/em>moment and discovered the movie to you – were even born at 1978., it is hard to imagine anyone bypassing this music-movie classic. However, before it was to appear on the big screen, the musical Grease was performed on several theatre stages \u2013 initially in 1971. in Kingston Mines Theatre<\/em> in Chicago, and the following year on Broadway\u2019s Eden Theatre<\/em>. An interesting fact is that two years later, in the first production of London\u2019s West End<\/em>, Richard Gere would appear in the man\u2019s leading role, while Sandy was interpreted by Elaine Page \u2013 the legend of the Britain\u2019s music theatre.<\/p>\n

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Still, let us remind ourselves of the\u00a0\u201cGrease\u201d<\/em>\u00a0heroes \u2013 Denny and Sandy, two teenagers who met and fell in love during the summer break and soon after \u2013 followed by the series of unforeseen circumstances \u2013 meet again in a totally new high school surrounding. The plot of this harmless love story set in 1958 posed as a benign counterweight to still turbulent events of the \u201870s. That was, most probably, one of the things that contributed to the world success that\u00a0<\/em>Grease\u00a0\u2013 far from having any expectations \u2013 achieved. That goes for the year of the release as well as for the next 40 years of showing on the screen. Today, after so many years of\u00a0<\/em>Grease\u2019s\u00a0presence and us singing along to hits like\u00a0You\u2019re the one that I want<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Summer nights<\/em>, we know that the key to success is in the music. After all, it\u2019s to an extent logical that music is the element that makes a musical \u201ceverlasting\u201d<\/em>, when there is a whole line of the non-music movies \u2013 dramas, adventures, even action blockbusters \u2013 where original music comes to mind long before the actual scenes. Just think of Coppola\u2019s\u00a0\u201cGodfather\u201d<\/em>,\u00a0movies like\u00a0\u201cThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly\u201d<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cChariots of Fire\u201d<\/em>, \u201cThe Piano\u201d<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0\u201cIndiana Jones\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cStar Wars\u201d<\/em>\u00a0series\u2026<\/p>\n

And so, we come back to songs that we all know, and we discover that besides the existing music from the theatre show, as many as four of them were composed last minute specifically for the movie screen. And those are the very songs without which, it seems, the \u201cGrease\u201d<\/em> wouldn\u2019t be what it is today.\u00a0The numbers in question are Grease<\/em> <\/i>performed by Frankie Valli, the solo act Sandy<\/em> <\/i>written for Travolta and in the end the key numbers Hopelessly Devoted to You\u00a0<\/em>and the duet You\u2019re the One That I Want.\u00a0<\/em>The ballad Hopelessly Devoted to You\u00a0<\/em>brought an Oscar nomination to Olivia Newton John and the mentioned duet\u00a0<\/em>was on the top of almost every music chart in the world for weeks! According to a BBC\u2019s research, You\u2019re the One That I Want\u00a0<\/em>was the bestselling movie song in Great Britain.<\/p>\n