Movie review: ‘Grease(s)’

FloridaGator80

The last time I re-watched “Grease” and its shallow sequel “Grease 2,” I was struck by the contrasts in each film as well as the comparison of one to the other. Each is good in one way and bad in others, but the original benefited from its transition from Broadway to the big screen and luckily didn’t have to rely on Hollywood original creativity (or lack thereof) to become an instantly iconic musical. “Grease” is fun, watchable and entertaining, while “Grease 2” is just the opposite – but the sequel has something the original couldn’t find … chemistry between the leads. So, don’t worry how you can watch either or both in this age of streaming services.

‘Grease’
(1978; 110 minutes; rated PG-13; directed by Randal Kleiser and starring John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Stockard Channing)
‘Grease 2’
(1982; 115 minutes; rated PG; directed by Patricia Birch and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Maxwell Caulfield and Lorna Luft)

ONE IS A GREAT MUSICAL, ONE COULD HAVE BEEN A LOVE STORY

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on June 21, 2026.)

The thing that jumped out at me while re-watching “Grease” and “Grease 2” is that each has superior qualities. The songs and choreography of “Grease” made it an instant big-screen musical classic, while “Grease 2” fails on all those levels, but could have even been a better motion picture – except only standing on its own and not as a sequel. If I just lost you, bear with me.

“Grease” is adapted from a Broadway production and it shows (no pun intended). The music is great and, while the choreography is obviously different for being adapted into a film, the filmmakers thankfully didn’t have to rely on original creativity.

A lack of creativity in both score and choreography sink “Grease 2” immediately, but it’s odd since the sequel’s director Patricia Birch is credited as choreographing both. I guess Patricia, who also did choreography on the Broadway version, was a one-trick pony with the wonderful original “Grease” productions because she sure served up a visual and aural stinkbomb with “Grease 2.”

Oh, and it’s nice that they just used the numeral “2” for the sequel instead of something like “Greasier” or “Greased Again” or something stupid like what the director wanted: “Son of Grease.” Huh? Well, that shows Birch’s lack of creativity at that time and she countered the tide of criticism of “Grease 2” by blaming the script not being completed by the time filming started. Yeah, right, Patricia.

However deficient as an overall motion picture, “Grease 2” has something that the original tried but failed miserably to produce: Actual on-screen chemistry between the headliners. The original’s John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John never really get together the way Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caufield do in several scenes in the sequel.

Heck, Newton-John gives more emotion to Stockard Channing (her nemesis) in one scene of barely a minute than she does in the whole film with Travolta.

Not so for Pfeiffer and Caulfield.

In the end, the filmmakers would have done better to use a similar storyline and have Pfeiffer and Caufield make it a true love story instead being framed by the original movie. I don’t know if it helped or hurt the actors to already know how Newton-John and Travolta played essentially the same two in the original, but I sure know that Pfeiffer and Caulfield could have heated up a different film much better than they did in “Grease 2.”

Both films have similar stories – newcomer to the high school is from another country (Australia vs. England); each is after the “coolest” kid in school (the “coolest” is a boy in the original and a girl in sequel); they have ups and downs; and they wind up together.

The subtle difference is that in the original, Newton-John and Travolta had been an item over the previous summer, while Caulfield pursues Pfeiffer first by stalk… er, watching from afar, then getting a little closer and finally as her anonymous perfect guy. In each case, both “coolest” kids (Travolta and Pfeiffer) have just had breakups with major supporting characters.

Now, for a look at the pairings of headliners.

First, Travolta as ultra-cool “Danny Zuko,” who is leader of the T-Birds, and Newton-John as the prim and proper “Sandy Olsson” whose best friend at school is in the Pink Ladies:

  • A promotional photo from the 1978 movie “Grease.”

    A two-time Oscar nominee, Travolta came to work on “Grease” after just finishing shooting (and what would be his first nomination) on the instant disco classic “Saturday Night Fever.” However, unlike his TV character “Vinnie Barbarino” on “Welcome Back, Kotter,” he never projected the character of a gang member. He’s not really good as “Danny;” he doesn’t dance well; and his singing is simply an assault on your ears. However, as many had seen in “Saturday Night Fever” and would again in two years with “Urban Cowboy” (much less later with his other nominated film, Quentin Tarantino’s dark and violent “Pulp Fiction”), Travolta is watchable and therefore bankable as a movie star. I’ve already written that he did some things bad in “Grease,” but it doesn’t turn you off and I have to say that I’ve never seen any of his work that was so awful that I turned it off. As I already noted, he’s truly watchable. I also liked him in the action flick “Broken Arrow” (click here to read my review) and he did a wonderful turn as the mother in the remake of “Hairspray.”

  • A promotional photo from the 1978 movie “Grease.”

    Newton-John was nominated for Golden Globe for “Grease,” but, like Travolta, I just don’t see why anyone would elevate her work here to that level. She’s OK – watchable, as I noted about Travolta – but she doesn’t manage to elevate the character. Of course, unlike Travolta, her singing is top-notch, since that’s what she’s best at (she’s been a nominee for both a Grammy and Daytime Emmy for her music), but after that … meh. Newton-John is more noted for bad films such as “Xanadu” than good ones in her brief acting career of only 21 credits. Newton-John, a native of England, died at 73 of breast cancer in 2022.

Although both actors grade out D- at best, the film is great. I guess that is the best grade of all: It’s a simply wonderful, watchable, sing-along film. It could have been better, but since it is pretty much iconic as a musical in American cinema, you’d have to admit it is a smashing success.

Now, on to the sequel’s stars, Pfeiffer as “Stephanie Zinone,” who is the leader of the “Pink Ladies,” and Caulfield as “Michael Carrington:”

  • A promotional photo from the 1982 movie “Grease 2.”

    A three-time Oscar nominee (certainly not for this one), Pfeiffer puts out an effort that manages to be a dichotomy by itself. On one hand she just looks completely lost in most of the musical numbers, but then turns it around in scenes with Caulfield. She did even worse acting in her small time on screen in her first film “The Hollywood Knights” (click here to read my review), but I just can’t keep thinking about how much better a film she and Caulfield could have been in together that wouldn’t stink as bad as “Grease 2.” Of course, Pfeiffer was nominated for “Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys” and “Love Field.” She should have been nominated for Jonathan Demme’s “Married to the Mob” (click here to read my review) and I also liked her in the remake of “Hairspray” with Travolta.

  • A promotional photo from the 1982 movie “Grease 2.”

    Caulfield was in his second motion picture with “Grease 2” but it doesn’t show. Although he has to deal with a deficient script, he never comes off lost or, worse, as incompetent (as so many others manage). He’s solid and almost instantly picks up his game when Pfeiffer is around. Of course, his character has to deal with stereotypes, etc., that all bad films have, but he never sinks into the muck. Although “Grease 2” is officially Caulfield’s second movie, it’s really his debut. His first was as a minor character at age 8 in “Accident” from 1967. He’s had 98 credits from a U.S. soap opera (“Ryan’s Hope” in an uncredited role as a “punk”) to English TV to movies you definitely did not see. Well, too bad he didn’t become a bigger star in the U.S. I like his work in “Grease 2.”

A promotional photo from the 1978 movie “Grease.”

The supporting casts grade out the same as the movies: The original supporting players are head-and-shoulders above the mooks in the sequel. Didi Conn reprises her role as “Frenchy” in the “Grease 2”, but it’s a pathetic display in bridging the two films (and too much time is spent on her character and telling banal tales about the past). Check out the trivia portion of this review below to find out why Conn’s “Frenchy” is handled in such a terrible way.

As for Adrian Zmed who plays T-Birds leader “Johnny Nogerelli” and is the Travolta-like character in the sequel (he played the lead in the stage show), he fumbles about in an acting frenzy usually reserved for dinner theater and I liked him much better in “Bachelor Party” (click here to read my review of that R-rated raunch-fest).

A promotional photo from the 1982 movie “Grease 2.”

The biggest “name” in the supporting cast at the time was Lorna Luft, whose main claim to fame is that she’s Judy Garland’s daughter and half-sister of Liza Minelli. I guess she was trying to become a “star” with “Grease 2,” but it wasn’t going to happen. She doesn’t show any acting ability in “Grease 2” and has expressions more like she’s experiencing a nasty case of intestinal gas than she is putting on a performance.

However, maybe I’m being too harsh, because I don’t dislike her in the film. Luft was 31 playing a high schooler when “Grease 2” made its premiere and that’s two years older than Newton-John when “Grease” came out. Two years after “Grease 2,” Luft was also in another horrid remake “Where the Boys Are” in 1984 and so I guess making bad sequels is her best game. She has a thin resume of 18 acting credits and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for her work in the TV mini-series “Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.”

A promotional photo from the 1982 movie “Grease 2.”

The sequel did bring in a couple of faded stars to try to boost up the film and they are Tab Hunter and Connie Stevens as teachers at the school. But, along with roles reprised by Eve Arden (the principal), Dody Goodman (Eve’s sidekick administrator) and Sid Caesar as “Coach Calhoun,” the group does an undistinguished job and should have been better or had their on-screen time cut drastically.

BTW … Hunter died at 86 of a heart attack in 2018; Arden died at 82 of a heart attack in 1990; Caesar died at 91 in 2014; and Goodman died at 93 in 2008.

As for “Grease,” it was the summer powerhouse that finished as the No. 1 film at the U.S. box office in 1978 with $159.9 million in ticket sales, according to Wiki. It bested “Superman” at No 2 with $134.2 million and coming in third – and a much better film than both No. 1 and No. 2 put together – was National Lampoon’s “Animal House” with $120 million. Here are the films from 1978 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

As for “Grease 2,” it actually earned more than it deserved in 1982 when it came in at No. 51 with $15.1 million take at theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. Chump change compared to the original. The No. 1 film of the year was “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” with a whopping $359.1 million, which was miles ahead of No.2: The great Dustin Hoffman comedy-drama “Tootsie” with $177.2 million. Here are the films from that year that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com’s trivia pages for “Grease” and “Grease 2”):

  • Channing’s birth name is Susan Williams Antonia Stockard; Conaway’s full birth name was Jeffery Charles William Michael Conaway; Conn’s birth name is Edith Bernstein; Hunter’s birth name was Arthur Andrew Kelm and his nickname was the “Sigh Guy;” Stevens’ birth name is Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingolia; Arden’s birth name was Eunice Marion Quedens; and Caulfield’s birth name is Maxwell Peter John Newby.
  • Caulfield’s wife is the wonderful actress Juliet Mills and they’ve been married since 1980. Their birthdays are two days apart – separated by 18 years (Juliet was born in 1941 and Maxwell in 1959).
  • “Grease 2” was Oscar nominee (not for this one) Arden’s final film before her death in 1990 at 82 of a heart attack. Her final credit was a TV series on the air three years before her death. She was nominated for 1945’s “Mildred Pierce.”
  • TV’s “Happy Days” sensation Henry Winkler was offered the role of “Danny Zuko” but turned it down out of fear of being typecast, while rocker Pat Benatar was considered for the “Stephanie Zinnone” character in the sequel. Singer Kim Carnes was offered the “Zinnone” role, but turned it down.
  • Everyone’s favorite beach queen Annette Funicello, whose anatomy was a line in the original “Grease,” was set to play Stevens’ character, but had to drop out because of a scheduling conflict. I’m conflicted since both do a good job in the wonderful beach sequel “Back to the Beach” (click here to read my review).
  • Caulfield and Pfeiffer reportedly did not get along during the filming of “Grease 2” and I’d say that helped sharpen their efforts while on camera together.
  • Directly from IMDb.com about “Grease:” “In 1978, the film grossed just under $160 million domestically, more than other renowned movies that year. As of December 2017, it has grossed a domestic total of $188,755,690 and a worldwide total of $394,955,690, against a budget of $6 million. It also became the highest-earning musical of all time. The second highest is Chicago (2002).”
  • The official premiere party for “Grease” was held at Studio 54.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com about “Grease:” “Most of the principal cast were well past their high school years. When filming began in June 1977, Stockard Channing was 33, Michael Tucci was 31, Jamie Donnelly was 30, Annette Charles was 29, Olivia Newton-John was 28, Barry Pearl was 27, Jeff Conaway was 26, Didi Conn was 25, John Travolta was 23, Kelly Ward and Eddie Deezen were both 20, and Dinah Manoff and Lorenzo Lamas were both 19.”
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com about “Grease 2:” “In a 2003 interview, Didi Conn explained why her character, Frenchy, disappeared halfway into the movie. She said the script was not finished when they began filming, but the draft they were using still included Frenchy. The character was written out during filming, and she was told halfway through that she was no longer needed. The filmmakers ultimately decided to include Frenchy in the final cut, though they had limited footage. Didi described the filming process as ‘rushed, frantic, and unorganized.’”

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