Pier Gets Ready to Rumble

By Mark McGuigan
Staff Writer

August 25 -- It’s time to mousse up that hair, dust off those leather jackets and get ready to rumble as the movie Grease struts its stuff on the Santa Monica Pier Tuesday evening, the final movie in the first annual Summer Film Festival.

The engines start revving and the fingers start snapping at sunset (approximately 8 p.m.) when John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John recapture the nostalgia of the classic American love story by singing, dancing and driving hip cars.

This 1978 adaptation of the Broadway musical is a winsome portrayal of high school infatuation and 50's cool and boasts a range of hair-do’s that make the super-structure of the Hoover Dam pale in comparison.

As part of the musical celebration, fans of the movie are invited to dress accordingly, with prizes for the best-dressed T-bird or Pink Lady up for grabs before the show starts and a karaoke machine for those who want to win-over (or drive away) their other half.

Special guests on the night will include the movie’s director, Randal Kleiser, and actor Edd “Kookie” Burns, who played the role of Vince Fontaine and who will be signing his new book “Kookie No More.”

The last in a series of four classic movies shown every Tuesday night in August, the series has so far attracted 8,400 moviegoers to the pier this summer, all hoping to experience the nostalgia of the American drive-in and to support “The Cancer Relief Fund.”

“Our series has proven to be a success within the Santa Monica community,” said festival director Michael Cain, “with people coming from all over Los Angeles to enjoy an evening reminiscent of the old drive-in days enraptured by our screenings of Raiders of The Lost Ark, Jaws and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”

“It is an added bonus for film lovers to know that proceeds from the event go to cancer relief,” Cain added.

The goal of the fund is to raise $10,000 from chair rentals, merchandise sales and raffles to make mortgage, rent and car payments on behalf of cancer victims.

Raffles on Tuesday night include a prize for a Vespa motor scooter -- the $5 donation going directly to the relief fund -- as well as Coffee Bean baskets and six month memberships to Netflix, one of the evenings sponsors along with DIRECTV.

So pull out of squaresville and bop on down to some crazy tunes, daddy-o. Bobby socks and hair gel will not be provided.

Grease Movie Trivia

• Henry Winkler, who was playing Fonzie on "Happy Days" (1974), was originally tapped to play Danny but didn't for fear of being typecast.
• Marie Osmond turned down the role of Sandy.
• Due to a zipper breaking, Olivia Newton-John had to be sewn into the trousers she wears in the last sequence (the carnival at Rydell).
• Jeff Conaway had to walk slightly stooped so that John Travolta would appear taller.
• Set in high school, most of the principal cast members was way past their teen years at the time of filming. John Travolta was 24; Conaway, Jeff, Tucci, Michael, Pearl, Barry, Conn and Didi were all 28; Olivia Newton-John was 29.
• "You're the One that I Want" took just one afternoon to film.
• The Drive-In Sequence was filmed at the Studio Drive In, formerly located in Culver City, California. The Studio opened in the 1930s, and was the first Drive-in Theatre built in California. It served as a set for many other films, including Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)." It was closed in 1993, and was demolished in 1998. No trace of this Drive-in remains.
• When Olivia Newton-John was cast as Sandy, her character's background had to be changed to accommodate Newton-John's own background. In the original Broadway musical Sandy was an all-American girl and her last name was Dumbroski. In the movie version, she became Sandy Olesson, foreign-exchange student from Australia.