Xanadu (1980)

(On TV, January 2020) There is an infamous place in movie history for Xanadu, often disregarded as one of the worst musicals of all time. That’s an exaggeration, but there’s no denying that Xanadu remains a strikingly weird experience to undergo. Updating a 1940s film plot to the disco era, this is an attempt to make a musical focused on roller-skates, disco and pinball machines. It stars no less an unlikely couple as Olivia Newton-John and legend Gene Kelly in his last feature-film role. (They do share a scene and a few dance moves.) The plot is near-incomprehensible for reasons best explained by a chaotic production process that left dangling a few narrative threads of earlier script drafts. The result is immediately recognizable at being from 1980 (plus or minus two years), far more dated than the earlier musicals that inspired it. The staging isn’t particularly inspired, but the music—wow, the music! Olivia Newton-John and her signature disco sound don’t do much for me, but the other half of the soundtrack is from Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra, and those remain timeless songs. (Indeed, at least three of them made for the movie have gone on to become minor ELO hits.) There is something this close to delirium watching Gene Kelly in circa-1980 montages, trying out clothing and being subject to the blunt optical effects of the era. The film was cutting edge then and is now highly stylized in its use of disco visual references. Up to a certain level, Xanadu escapes mere considerations of being good or bad—it’s an experience, and I can now proudly say that I have seen it.