Yes, they’ve given Grease the big-screen karaoke treatment, and yes, they really did screen it for press. (Professional courtesy prevents me from revealing which representative of the Rupert Murdoch papers gave us a note-perfect Beauty School Dropout.) The chief take-home message is how closely this post-Night Fever exercise in teensploitation – again produced by Bee Gees boss Robert Stigwood – is tied to its soundtrack. It’s the songs, displaying greater storytelling nous than the rest of this oddly shambling, plotless perennial, which give the bubblegum its snap.
The T-Birds and Pink Ladies of today probably won’t have a clue who Frankie Avalon is, but it is still hard not to respond favourably to its gaudy moves, and hard to miss the timeless urges preserved within these lyrics. Even Summer Nights, which is hardly thought of as GG Allin, slips in the flagrantly suggestive: “She was good/ Ya know what I mean”. Follow the bouncing balls, fill in your own blanks.
