Grease
1978
Written by Barry Gibb/Sung by Frankie Valli
Anyone and everyone who was a teen or in their early
twenties during the latter half of The 70s, prepare to feel old,
going on ancient. Guess what happened 35 years ago this past
weekend...June 16th 1978, to be exact. ::Hums theme from
Jeopardy:: Figured it out yet?
On June 16th, 1978 the movie theaters of the
nation were mobbed as a little film based on a Broadway musical about
a greaser and a good girl who fell in love was released, and that movie spawned a
soundtrack that is still the 6th best selling movie
soundtrack of all time. Give up?
That's right...'Grease' opened 35 years ago last
weekend, and became a runaway hit...it had been highly
anticipated for months with the trailer preceding other movies and
appearing on TV for a good four months before the movie opening. Of course there was a sound track. The Sound Track from Grease was released in April, two months before the movie, and it
became a ::Cough Cough:: minor hit. The Soundtrack from
Grease is still listed as the sixth best selling movie sound track of
all time The four biggest hits off of the sound track, all of which were
written specifically for the film, were just as successful, scoring a pair of #1's, a #3, and a#5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Trust me on this, you heard
all four of 'em all summer long. Three of them were uber-up-tempo,
high energy pop tunes that you couldn't help but head bop and finger
snap with, and one of 'em was a love ballad sung by the then and
still very lovely Olivia Newton John.
The first of the hits was the title song, 'Grease',
which was ordered up especially for this movie, and it was the only
one of the four mega-hits that didn't feature at least one of the two
leads singing vocals.
It was penned by Barry Gibb, of The Bee Gees' fame, and
sung by a true vocal legend, none other than Frankie Valli. The song was
played over a very original and unique animated title sequence at the
beginning the movie, then repeated as the end credits
rolled.
The wild thing about the song was, as hugely popular as
it was, a lot of the suits behind the film hated it because it was so out of place with the movie's theme.
'Grease' was actually supposed to have taken place in 1959, while the
title song was solidly late 1970s disco. Apparently, we, the
movie-going, record-buying kids of the 1970s didn't mind this slight
musical mis-cue. 'Cause we, those crazy 70s kids, bought 7 million
copies of the single world wide, and caused 'Grease...the film...to
be the #1 film, box-office wise, of 1978 and to have the highest box
office gross of any musical. Ever. A record that still stands
to this day. (Go GETTUM Danny and Sandy!)
And
people are still
watching the movie, and you can still
hear Frankie Valli crooning 'Grease
is the word...is the word...is the word' on
Oldies stations to this day.
Without
further ado...Enjoy! (Don't even try
yo tell me ya didn't sing along with it! ;) )
'Grease' by the team of Barry Gibb and Frankie Valli, with the original title sequence.
A
couple of little tidbits...the first one personal...sort of. When I
got in the rescue squad (that'd be Chester's own Bensley-Bermuda Vol
Rescue Squad) back in 1981, the movie was only three years old, and
VCRs were new and high tech...so new that the two formats (Beta-max
and VHS) were still fighting it out. And we had a VCR in the day-room
at the squad. Not only that, we had a Beta
VCR at the squad. And one of the only discs...maybe the only
disc we had for it was none other than...Grease. We actually managed
to wear the disc out we watched it so much.
Every
project of every kind should make a profit like this. The budget for
Grease was 6 million dollars. World Wide Box Office receipts totaled
$387,513,770. Yeah...I think
they may have made a profit on it.
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