Grease (film)


Grease is a 1978 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser from a screenplay by Bronté Woodard and an adaptation by co-producer Allan Carr, based on the 1972 stage musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The plot follows greaser Danny Zuko and Australian transfer student Sandy Olsson, who develop an attraction for each other during a summer romance.
Grease was released in the United States on June 16, 1978, by Paramount Pictures. The film was successful both critically and commercially, becoming the highest-grossing musical film at the time. Its soundtrack album ended 1978 as the second-best-selling album of the year in the United States, only behind the soundtrack of the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, which also starred Travolta, and the song "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 51st Academy Awards. The film also received five nominations at the 36th Golden Globe Awards, including for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and two for Best Original Song, for "Grease" and "You're the One that I Want". In 2020, Grease was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
A sequel, Grease 2, was released on June 11, 1982, starring Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer as a newer class of greasers. Few of the original cast members reprised their roles. In 2023, a short-lived prequel television series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, debuted on Paramount+, lasting for only one season.

Plot

During the summer of 1958, greaser Danny Zuko and straight-laced Australian girl Sandy Olsson fall in love at the beach. As Sandy prepares to return home, she worries that she will never see Danny again, but he comforts her by saying that the summer is "only the beginning" for them.
On the first day of his senior year at Rydell High School, Danny reconnects with the members of his greaser gang the T-Birds: Sonny, Putzie, Doody, and his best friend Kenickie. Sandy arrives at Rydell and is introduced to girls' gang The Pink Ladies—Marty, Jan and leader Betty Rizzo—by mutual friend Frenchy. At lunch, Danny and Sandy each separately describe their summer, unaware of the other's presence until Sandy mentions Danny's name, which the Pink Ladies recognize.
At a pep rally, Sandy, now a cheerleader, flirts with Tom, a football player. Kenickie arrives in "Greased Lightnin, a heavily used car he plans on restoring in order to drag race it at Thunder Road. Rizzo and the Pink Ladies surprise Sandy by reuniting her with a shocked Danny. Sandy is thrilled, but Danny makes fun of her to maintain his tough image. Frenchy invites her to a sleepover with the other Pink Ladies that night to make her feel better.
At the sleepover, Rizzo makes fun of Sandy's good-girl image, and Frenchy announces she is dropping out of Rydell to go to beauty school. The T-Birds crash the party, and Rizzo leaves with Kenickie to have sex in Greased Lightnin' at a nearby make-out spot. While the couple is there, rival greasers Leo and Cha-Cha interrupt them.
Danny motivates the T-Birds to work on the car by saying it will win them both girls and races. Later, he sees Sandy on a date with Tom and tries to apologize for his attitude at the pep rally, but she is unconvinced. Danny tries several sports in order to impress Sandy, eventually succeeding at track and field. Sandy, bored with Tom, agrees to be Danny's date to an upcoming dance at which the television show National Bandstand will do a live broadcast from the Rydell gym. Rizzo and Kenickie break up after a fight. After a disastrous beauty class, Frenchy reluctantly decides to return to Rydell to complete her high school education.
At the dance, Rizzo and Kenickie bring Leo and Cha-Cha as their respective dates out of spite. In a ribald dance contest that ends with the T-Birds mooning the cameras, Danny begins the contest with Sandy before Sonny pushes Sandy off the floor and Cha-Cha cuts in. Danny and Cha-Cha win as Sandy storms off.
To make it up to her, Danny takes Sandy to a drive-in movie and asks her to wear his ring. She accepts, but when he tries to make out with her, she flees the drive-in, leaving Danny hurt. Meanwhile, Rizzo fears that she may be pregnant, and tells Marty. When word reaches Kenickie, he offers to help, but she denies that he is the father.
At Thunder Road, Kenickie's head collides with his own car door, leaving him concussed. Danny takes his place behind the wheel and beats Leo in the race. Sandy decides to change her image and asks Frenchy for help.
At Rydell's graduation carnival, Rizzo discovers that she is not pregnant, and she and Kenickie get back together. Danny shocks the T-Birds by becoming a letterman, and Sandy shocks everyone with a new leather, "greaser"-style outfit. She and Danny reconcile and the whole gang vows to "always be together". Danny and Sandy drive off into the sky while their friends wave goodbye.

Cast

Principal cast

;Protagonists
;T-Birds
;Pink Ladies
;Students
;School staff
;Others
Director Randal Kleiser took numerous liberties with the original source material, most notably moving the setting from an urban Chicago setting, as the original musical had been, to a more suburban locale, reflecting his own teenage years at Radnor High School in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Writer Warren Casey was said to have based the high school on Gorton High School in Yonkers, New York. He had little control over the musical aspects of the film; his choice of theme song, a composition by Charles Fox and Paul Williams, was overruled when Robert Stigwood and Allan Carr commissioned a song from Stigwood's client Barry Gibb at the last minute.

Casting

had previously worked with Stigwood on Saturday Night Fever, recorded the top-10 hit "Let Her In" in 1976, and had previously appeared as Doody in a touring production of the stage version of Grease. As part of a three-picture deal with Stigwood, Travolta was given the lead role after Henry Winkler turned down the role for fear of becoming typecast as a greaser character. Director Randal Kleiser had never directed a theatrical feature before this but had directed Travolta in the 1976 telefilm The Boy in the Plastic Bubble; Kleiser helped Travolta maintain focus as he grieved the death of Diana Hyland. Before Newton-John was hired, Allan Carr was considering numerous names such as Carrie Fisher, Ann-Margret, Deborah Raffin, Susan Dey and Marie Osmond for the lead role. Fisher, who had recently finished Star Wars, was ultimately rejected because neither Stigwood nor Carr knew if she could sing. Osmond almost took the role before she realized the extent to which the character transformed into a rebel; she turned it down to instead star in Goin' Coconuts. Carr eventually chose Newton-John after a chance encounter at a soireé hosted by Helen Reddy. Newton-John had done little acting; before this film she had only two film credits, both of which predated her singing breakthrough, and she requested a screen test prior to accepting the role. She thought that she was not going to be cast, for she was 28 years old. She agreed to a reduced asking price in exchange for star billing and the ability to rewrite the script, which included changing her character's origin to an Australian immigrant and making her less passive. In a case of life imitating art, Newton-John's own musical career would undergo a transformation similar to that of the Sandy Olsson character; her next album after Grease, the provocatively titled Totally Hot, featured a much more sexual and pop-oriented approach, with Newton-John appearing on the album cover in similar all-leather attire and teased hair.
Lorna Luft and Lucie Arnaz both auditioned for the part of Rizzo, but a talent client of Carr, Stockard Channing, was cast, several years after her last major film role and debut in The Fortune. At 33 she was the oldest cast member to play a high school student, and Kleiser made her and the other actors playing students take a "crow's feet test" to see whether they could pass for younger in close-ups. Softer focus was used on some of the older actors' faces. Channing lobbied heavily to keep the climactic song "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" in the score over Carr's objections.
Elvis Presley was considered for the role of The Teen Angel but died before production. Marie Osmond's brother and duet partner Donny Osmond was another potential Teen Angel before Avalon was cast, as was Frankie Valli, who had been given the choice of either singing the theme or appearing as the Teen Angel. Fabian was noted as the inspiration for the role in the musical's script notes, but he and Allan Carr had fallen out after Carr's brief attempt at managing Fabian's stage act in 1974, as Carr determined Fabian's talent was limited to headlining a lounge act. Fabian stated in 2025 that he had been offered the role, but had to decline it due to being overseas when the scene was to be filmed. The role would revive Avalon's career on the nostalgia circuit, with Valli noting that both Frankies benefited from their appearances despite "Beauty School Dropout" not being released as a single.
Jeff Conaway, like Travolta, had previously appeared in the stage version of Grease; he had played Danny Zuko during the show's run on Broadway. He did not get to perform Kenickie's featured number "Greased Lightnin' due to Travolta's influence and desire to have that song for himself. Jamie Donnelly reprised her role as Jan from the Broadway show, the only cast member to do so; as her hair had begun to gray by this point, she had to dye her hair to resemble her stage character.
Lorenzo Lamas was a last-minute replacement for Steven Ford, who developed stage fright shortly before filming and backed out, and Mark Fidrych, who ran into conflicts with his full-time career as a baseball player. His role contained no spoken dialogue and required Lamas to bleach his hair to avoid looking like one of the T-Birds.
Adult film star Harry Reems was originally signed to play Coach Calhoun; however, executives at Paramount nixed the idea, concerned that his reputation as a porn star would hinder box office returns in the Southern United States, and producers cast Sid Caesar instead. Caesar was one of several veterans of 1950s television to be cast in supporting roles; Paul Lynde was considered for the role Arden ultimately filled, with a scene conceived for Lynde that would have had him in a Carmen Miranda outfit. Coincidentally, Frankie Avalon and Randal Kleiser had both appeared in 1966's Fireball 500, the latter as an extra.