Grease 2

Grease 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Patricia Birch
Produced by	Robert Stigwood Allan Carr
Written by	Ken Finkleman
Starring	Maxwell Caulfield Michelle Pfeiffer Adrian Zmed Lorna Luft Didi Conn
Music by	Louis St. Louis
Cinematography	Frank Stanley
Editing by	John F. Burnett
Studio	Paramount Pictures
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	June 11, 1982 (1982-06-11)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11.2 million
Box office	$15,171,476

Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Grease 2 was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film. It takes place two years after the original film at Rydell High School, with an almost entirely new cast, led by actors Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film was a severe commercial and critical failure.

Plot

It is 1961, two years after the original Grease gang became seniors. The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), who feels she has "outgrown" her relationship with the arrogant leader of the T-Birds, Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed) during summer break. A new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut British student Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) (a cousin of Sandy Olsson, Olivia Newton-John's character from Grease), who quickly becomes smitten with Steph. At the local bowling alley, a game ("Score Tonight") turns sour due to the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Stephanie retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, which happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael attempts to ask her out but discovers that she has a very specific vision of her ideal man ("Cool Rider"). As he realizes that he will only win her affection if he turns himself into a cool rider, Michael accepts payment from the T-Birds to write papers for them, and uses the cash to buy a motorcycle.

Following an unusual biology lesson ("Reproduction") given by Mr. Stuart (Tab Hunter), a gang of rival motorcyclists called the Cycle Lords surprise the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before the fight starts, a lone anonymous biker appears, who is in fact a disguised Michael, defeats the enemy gang, and disappears into the night ("Who's That Guy?"). Stephanie is instantly fascinated with the stranger. In a short comic scene, one of the T-Birds, Louis DiMucci (Peter Frechette), attempts to trick his sweetheart Sharon (Maureen Teefy) into losing her virginity to him by taking her to a fallout shelter and faking a nuclear attack ("Let's Do It for Our Country").

The next evening, Stephanie is surprised again by the Cool Rider and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the whole gang; before Michael disappears again, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the talent show, in which the Pink Ladies and T-Birds are performing. Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the "Cool Rider" if he sees him with her again. The Pink Ladies exit haughtily, although this has little effect on the T-Birds' self-confidence ("Prowlin'").

At school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help. She slowly begins to discover that she has similar feelings for him, and starts to reciprocate his crush. Johnny, upon seeing them together in a discussion, demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies for his "rep". Stephanie is visibly upset by this but refuses to quit the Pink Ladies. Although still head over heels for the Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become smitten with him as well, as Michael ponders over his continuing charade he puts on for Stephanie ("Charades").

At the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet outside the school, but are ambushed by the T-Birds who pursue Michael with Stephanie and the Pink Ladies following in a car. They chase him to a construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has perished below, leaving Stephanie inconsolable. Johnny and his T-Birds remove the competing Preptones preppie boys in the locker room by tying them to a shower pole and drenching them. During the Pink Ladies' number at the talent show ("A Girl For All Seasons"), Stephanie enters a dreamlike fantasy world where she is reunited with her mystery biker ("(Love Will) Turn Back The Hands Of Time"). She is named winner of the contest and crowned the queen of the upcoming graduation luau, with Johnny hailed as king for his performance of "Prowlin'" with his fellow T-Birds.

The school year ends with the luau ("Rock-A-Hula Luau"), during which the Cycle Lords suddenly reappear and begin to destroy the celebration. After the Cool Rider reappears and defeats the Cycle Lords again, he finally reveals himself to be Michael. After his initial shock, Johnny offers him a T-Bird jacket and welcomes him into the gang, and Stephanie finally accepts that she can be with him. All of the couples pair off happily at graduation as the graduating class sings ("We'll Be Together"). The credits start rolling in yearbook-style, as in the original film.

Remakes

The film's screenplay was adapted in the Kannada (South India) feature film Premaloka, starring Ravichandran and Juhi Chawla, released in 1987 which went on to become a blockbuster.

Cast

• Maxwell Caulfield as Michael Carrington/Cool Rider, an English exchange student and Sandy Olsson's cousin. Caulfield had already made his Broadway début with roles in The Elephant Man and Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Having seen his performances, Allan Carr offered Caulfield the role of Michael over thousands of applicants.^[1] Unlike co-star Michelle Pfeiffer, Caulfield's career following Grease 2 was damaged by the film's failure. He has been quoted as saying: "Before Grease 2 came out, I was being hailed as the next Richard Gere or John Travolta. However, when Grease 2 flopped, nobody would touch me. It felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face. It took me 10 years to get over Grease 2."^[2]

• Michelle Pfeiffer as Stephanie Zinone, the leader of the Pink Ladies. With only a few television roles and small film appearances, the 23-year-old Pfeiffer was an unknown actress when she attended the casting call audition for the role of Stephanie. Other better-known actresses up for the part included Lisa Hartman, Kristy McNichol, Andrea McArdle and singer Pat Benatar.^[3] Pfeiffer was a wild card choice, but according to Patricia Birch, she won the part because she "has a quirky quality you don't expect."^[4] Despite the disappointing reception of the film, Pfeiffer's meteoric rise to the Hollywood A-list began the following year when she played Elvira Hancock in Scarface.

The T-Birds

• Adrian Zmed as Johnny Nogerelli
• Peter Frechette as Louis DiMucci
• Christopher McDonald as Goose McKenzie
• Leif Green as Davey Jaworski

The Pink Ladies

• Lorna Luft as Paulette Rebchuck
• Maureen Teefy as Sharon Cooper
• Alison Price as Rhonda Ritter
• Pamela Segall as Dolores Rebchuck

Returning from the original Grease

• Didi Conn as Frenchy
• Eddie Deezen as Eugene Felsnic
• Eve Arden as Principal McGee (this was Arden's final film appearance before retiring from a five-decade career on stage and screen.^[5] She made a few more television appearances before her death in 1990)
• Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun
• Dody Goodman as Blanche Hodel
• Dennis C. Stewart as Balmudo (appeared in the first film as Leo)
• Dick Patterson as Mr. Spears (appeared in the first film as Mr. Rudie)

Supporting cast

• Tab Hunter as Mr. Stuart
• Connie Stevens as Miss Yvette Mason
• Jean and Liz Sagal as Twin Cheerleaders who perform the song "Brad"
• Matt Lattanzi as Brad
• Lucinda Dickey as Girl Greaser

Production

Grease co-producer Allan Carr had a deal with Paramount Pictures to be paid $5 million to produce a Grease sequel, with production beginning with three years of the original film. Carr decided to hire Patricia Birch as director for the sequel, as she had previously served as the choreographer for the stage and film versions of Grease. Birch was initially hesitant to accept after learning that neither composers Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey nor John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John would be involved in film.^[6] The total budget for the production was $11.2 million, almost double the budget of the original.^[7]

Birch proposed an idea to feature Travolta and Newton-John reprising their characters running a gas station near the end of the film, which did not come to fruition.^[6] Additionally, Paramount tried to get Jeff Conaway and Stockard Channing from the first film to do a cameo but this did not eventuate.^[8] Timothy Hutton was announced as male star^[9] but Maxwell Caulfield was signed after impressing producers on Broadway in Entertaining Mister Sloane. Lorna Luft was the last star cast.^[10]

Grease 2 was intended to be the second film (and first sequel) in a proposed Grease franchise of four films and a television series (The third and fourth films were to take place in the sixties and during the counterculture era.), however, the projects were scrapped due to the underwhelming box office performance of Grease 2.^[11] Maxwell Caulfield was unhappy with the film's "drab" title, and unsuccessfully lobbied to change it to Son of Grease.^[12]

The part played by Connie Stevens was originally meant for Annette Funicello but she was unable to appear in it due to a scheduling clash as she was filming an advertisement for peanut butter that week.^[13]

Scenes at Rydell High School were filmed at Excelsior High School, an abandoned school in Norwalk, California.^[7] Filming took place throughout a 58-day shooting schedule.^[11] According to director Patricia Birch, the script was still incomplete when filming commenced.^[11] Sequences that were filmed but cut during post-production include scenes in which Frenchy helps Michael become a motorcycle rider, and a sequence at the end of the film showing Michael and Stephanie flying off into the sky on a motorcycle.^[11]

In the film, after Stephanie wins the contest, it goes on to show the stakeout in the final scene. Originally, there were a few minutes dedicated to a scene in which Michael (believed to be dead in his alter ego, by Stephanie) comes out on stage as Stephanie is exiting the stage, unbeknownst to her that he is the cool rider and he is alive. He attempts to ask her what's wrong and she storms past him and runs off crying, then it cuts to the stakeout. There was a scene in the film within the "Who's that Guy?" number in which Goose (Christopher McDonald) accidentally smashes Rhonda's (Alison Price) nose at the Bowl-A-Rama door. None of these scenes have been shown since the film's release.

Reception

The sequel took in just over $15 million.^[14] Barry Diller of Paramount said that the film "on no level is as good as the first. The quality isn't there."^[15] Jim Jacobs described it as "awful... the pits."^[16]

Unlike the first film, Grease 2 received mostly negative reviews. As of 2013, it has a rating of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 critics' reviews.^[17] Janet Maslin for The New York Times condemned the film as "dizzy and slight, with an even more negligible plot than its predecessor had. This time the story can't even masquerade as an excuse for stringing the songs together. Songs? What songs? The numbers in Grease 2 are so hopelessly insubstantial that the cast is forced to burst into melody about pastimes like bowling."^[18] Variety, on the other hand, commended the staging of the musical numbers, writing that Patricia Birch has come up with some unusual settings (a bowling alley, a bomb shelter) for some of the scenes, and employs some sharp montage to give most of the songs and dances a fair amount of punch."^[19] Roger Ebert called it one of the worst films of the year, stating that it "went over the same grounds as the original Grease, but at half-speed."^[20]

Michelle Pfeiffer received positive notice for her first major role. The New York Times review cited her performance as the "one improvement" on the original film: "Miss Pfeiffer is as gorgeous as any cover girl, and she has a sullen quality that's more fitting to a Grease character than Miss Newton-John's sunniness was."^[18] Variety wrote that she was "all anyone could ask for in the looks department, and she fills Olivia Newton-John's shoes and tight pants very well."^[19] She was nominated for a 1983 Young Artist Award in the category of Best Young Motion Picture Actress. The movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture.^[21]

Plans for a third film

Paramount had intended to turn Grease into a multi-picture franchise with three sequels planned and a TV series down the road. When Grease 2 flopped at the box office, all the plans were scrapped.^[22]

In 2008, it was reported that Paramount was planning a new sequel to Grease that would debut straight to DVD;^[23] As of 2013, this has not materialized.

Soundtrack

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link

1. "Back to School Again" – Cast, The Four Tops
2. "Score Tonight" – Cast
3. "Brad" – Sorority Girls
4. "Cool Rider" – Stephanie
5. "Reproduction" – Mr. Stuart, Cast
6. "Who's That Guy?" – Michael, T-Birds, Pink Ladies, Cycle Lords, Cast
7. "Do It for Our Country" – Louis, Sharon (Sharon's part is absent from the soundtrack)
8. "Prowlin'" – Johnny, T-Birds
9. "Charades" – Michael
10. "Girl for All Seasons" – Sharon, Paulette, Rhonda, Stephanie
11. "(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time" – Stephanie, Michael
12. "Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer Is Coming)" – Cast
13. "We'll Be Together" – Michael, Stephanie, Johnny, Paulette, Cast

Featured as background music at Rydell Sport Field:

1. "Moon River" (Military Band)

Featured as background music at the bowling alley:

1. "Our Day Will Come" – Ruby & The Romantics (Grease 2 takes place in 1961 and "Our Day Will Come" did not come out until 1963)
2. "Rebel Walk" – Duane Eddy (this was the B-side of his biggest hit "Because They're Young")

Featured at the beginning:

1. "Alma Mater" – Instrumental (this song was played at the beginning when Principal McGee and Blanche put up the 1961 Rydell flag)

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Grease 2

• Grease 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• Grease 2 at allmovie
• Grease 2 at Box Office Mojo