Grease (1978)

(On TV, June 1998) My sister was almost speechless when she realized that I was watching Grease for the first time. “It’s a classic!” she finally said. “It’s a movie that defined a generation!” Well, maybe not, but it has a certain naive charm. Never mind that their fifties is a complete figment of their imagination, Grease is fun to watch, especially with a young John Travolta (and an equally-young Jeff Conaway, of Babylon-5 fame) The songs aren’t that good, but there are at least two memorably snappy tunes (“Summer Nights” and “We go Together”). Mercifully, the French version I saw had the good sense to keep the musical numbers in their original English version.