Randal Kleiser directs John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Stockard Channing in this high school musical about spunky seniors constantly battling with their non-conformist identities and their raging hormones.

I love Grease. I love the hit after hit songbook, a soundtrack that defined summer holidays and school parties for at least two entire generations. I love the dated Carry On style innuendo based humour. I love Stockard Channing actually puuting in an award worthy acting turn while everyone else is just trying to look a decade younger than they are. I like the thrills and spills of “Thunder Road”. I love the American Bandstand sequence which could be watched with no context to the feature’s plots and be the most frenetic, exciting and energetic short film you’ve ever seen. I love that bit where an animated sausage jumps into an animated bun and its more romantic than a million Love Storys. Flawed, messy perfection. “Why, it could be Greased Lightnin’!”

10

My Top 10 Musicals

1. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
2. Mary Poppins (1964)
3. LaLa Land (2016)
4. The Jungle Book (1967)
5. Grease (1978)
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut (1999)

7. Yellow Submarine (1968)
8. The Muppets Movie (1979)
9. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
10. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)