Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/gvGcY-PMazg I don’t even know when I added it to my watchlist, but working through my backlog, the musical _Grease_ suddenly became the next movie to watch. This is of course a classic and I cannot name one person who does know at least one song from it. So, deep in your brain somewhere, you’re probably aware generally of what this is about, but here is the official description: _Good girl Sandy Olsson and greaser Danny Zuko fell in love over the summer. When they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?_ Made in 1978 but set in 1958 this is a whole lot of toe tapping fun. Almost all of the songs are instantly recognisable, and although I will never admit it, I may or may not have slid across our kitchen tiles on my knees after watching it, yelling “it’s ELECTRIFYING”. What’s interesting watching this now is how lewd this is. So much of this went way over my head when watching this as a kid. Condoms breaking, calling cars pussy wagons, singing about chicks creaming and swimsuits getting damp, I forgot how much double entendre and innuendo there is in the song lyrics and the movie as a whole. What’s even more interesting is the theory of how Sandy in fact died on the beach in the opening scene and that the rest of the film is the dying, oxygen starved fantasy of her brain. Think about it - in the song “Summer Nights” from Sandy’s point of view, Danny says that when he met Sandy, “I saved her life; she nearly drowned.” What if I told you that, in reality, she _did_ drown hence why on the beach Sandy, as she enters the alternate plane asks him “Is this the end?” He replies, “Of course not. It’s only the beginning.” She then has the dying brain fantasy of a year of high school romance with Danny, the visions get more and more outlandish as the time passes, before, at the climax of the movie she and Danny drive off in a car that leaves the ground and drives off into heaven, in what we can only speculate are her final moments. Anyway that’s something to think about next time you watch it. Either way it’s a good fun movie and always worth a watch.

"Sandy" (Olivia Newton John) is a well brought up young girl who meets and falls in love with "Danny" (John Travolta) during summer break in late 1950's California. When they both start high school, though, we discover she to be the archetypical preppie-type who hangs about with Stockard Channing's "Pink Ladies" and he the leader of the "T-Birds" - the school's leather and white T-shirt clad greasers. Their obvious attraction to each other is hemmed in by their respective roles at school and they've got to find a way to sort it out! Channing is the star for me in this film. She's great as "Rizzo" - loads of attitude, earthy wisdom and "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" - that helps "Sandy" to hook her man. Along with some entertainingly well choreographed dance routines, the other songs are superb too - a mixture of toe tappers and sloppy ballads from the likes of Frankie Valli, Frankie Avalon and of course, the two stars with "You're the One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" that frequently outdo the rather banal script. It's a gently engaging, slightly competitive love story that, though a bit dated now, was certainly an important film as I grew up!