Grease 2

Infobox Film
name = Grease 2


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Patricia Birch
producer = Robert Stigwood
Allan Carr
writer = Ken Finkleman
starring = Maxwell Caulfield
Michelle Pfeiffer
Adrian Zmed
Lorna Luft
music = Louis St. Louis
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = June 11, 1982
runtime = 115 min.
country = flagicon|USA
language = English
budget = $13.2 million
gross = Domestic
$11,608,405
Foreign
$3,563,071
Worldwide
$15,171,476
preceded_by = "Grease"
amg_id = 1:151390
imdb_id = 0084021
Followed By: Grease 3

"Grease 2" is the 1982 sequel to the 1978 smash hit "Grease". The movie was strongly criticized by many as derivative of the original, and the film did poorly at the box office. In recent years, it has attained a cult following. It has surfaced on cable TV channels such as VH1 (which has shown it on their show "Movies That Rock"), ABC Family, and Bravo. It was shot entirely in California much like the prequel.

Plot

The movie starts in the fall (autumn) of 1961 (two years after the original) with a new group of students who are members of both the T-Birds, headed by Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed), and the Pink Ladies, headed by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer). He wants to keep dating her though her feelings for him are no longer there.

Meanwhile, Michael (Maxwell Caulfield), an exchange student from Australia arrives. He is the cousin of Sandy Olsson also from Australia, the character played by Olivia Newton-John in the first movie. Sandy's friend Frenchy (Didi Conn), who is returning to Rydell High to get her diploma was told about Michael's arrival in a letter from Sandy and helps Michael get settled into the school atmosphere at Sandy's behest. Michael soon becomes fascinated by Stephanie and asks her out, but she doesn't feel like going out with a grade-worried, good student like Michael. Stephanie tells Michael she'd like to date someone with a motorcycle, a "Cool Rider." This galvanizes Michael to start doing the T-Birds' homework for money, so he can buy his own bike to impress Stephanie.

A fight ensues between the T-Birds and their rivals, the Cycle Lords (headed by Balmudo Dennis C. Stewart, who had played the leader of the Scorpions gang from the original movie) after a game of ten-pin bowling. As the T-Birds are being beaten, a mysterious biker emerges and beats the Cycle Lords, embarrassing them and conquering Stephanie along the way. Now Michael has a dilemma: either keep on going as the mysterious biker, or take the risk of telling Stephanie that he is the biker who has her so impressed and maybe lose her forever.

Johnny is jealous of Stephanie and the Mysterious Biker (Michael). He vows to retaliate against the biker, threatening to Stephanie that he will hurt him the next time he sees him.

At the "June Moon Talent Contest" (as summer graduation 1962 approaches), the T-Birds chase the mysterious biker into a construction site ("Dead Man's Curve"), from where he is forced to jump into the night. The T-Birds look around to try to find their victim. Everyone assumes he has died even though there is no real evidence to support the fact, and Stephanie is devastated. Later during the talent show, Stephanie "spaces out" (possibly due to grief) and turns up singing "Love Will Turn Back the Hands of Time" in the middle of the Calendar Girls' (Pink Ladies') performance. This appears to the audience to be a solo, but to Stephanie, it is a duet with her recently lost love, the mysterious biker, who now seems to be in Biker Heaven.

Johnny and Stephanie are crowned king and queen of the talent show. At the Rock-a-Hula Luau the next day, however, the Cycle Lords reappear, threatening to destroy everything within sight. Out of nowhere, the mystery biker reappears, to Stephanie's relief and happiness. He finally reveals himself as Michael.

While Stephanie is shocked, she also realizes at that moment that the man she had loved all along was Michael, so she goes over to him and expresses her love to him with a long, passionate kiss and soon begin to slow dance to "We'll Be Together". Johnny is shocked as well. Admiring Michael for the way in which he had beaten their arch-rivals the Cycle Lords twice, he decides to make Michael a member of the T-Birds by handing him a T-Bird jacket. The film concludes with graduation and poses for the yearbook (similarly to the first movie).

Cast

*Maxwell Caulfield as Michael Carrington
*Michelle Pfeiffer as Stephanie Zinone
*Adrian Zmed as Johnny Nogerelli
*Lorna Luft as Paulette Rebchuck
*Peter Frechette as Louis DiMucci
*Maureen Teefy as Sharon Cooper
*Christopher McDonald as Goose McKenzie
*Alison Price as Rhonda Ritter
*Pamela Segall as Dolores Rebchuck
*Leif Green as Davey Jaworski
*Didi Conn as Frenchy
*Eve Arden as Principal McGee
*Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun
*Dody Goodman as Blanche Hodel
*Tab Hunter as Mr. Stuart
*Aidan Mcdonnel as Vira L.P. Enguin
*Connie Stevens as Miss Yvette Mason
*Eddie Deezen as Eugene Felsnic
*Dennis C. Stewart as Balmudo
*Jean and Liz Sagal as Twin Sorority Girls

Musical numbers

#"Back to School Again" - The Kids feat. The Four Tops
#"Score Tonight" - Cast
#"Brad" - Twin Sorority Girls
#"Cool Rider" - Stephanie
#"Reproduction" - Mr. Stuart and the Kids
#"Do It for Our Country" - Louis and Sharon
#"Who's That Guy?" - The T-Birds, the Pink Ladies, the Cycle Lords, and Kids
#"Prowlin'" - The T-Birds
#"Charades" - Michael
#"Girl for All Seasons" - The Pink Ladies
#"Love Will Turn Back the Hands of Time" - Stephanie and Michael
#"Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer is Coming)" - Cast
#"We'll Be Together" - Stephanie, Michael, and Cast

Musicians

* Guitars: Tim May
* Bass: Andy Muson
* Drums: Denny Seiwell
* Keyboards: Louis St. Louis:Recorded at Evergreen Recording Studios, Burbank by Murray McFadden and Gary Luchs

Criticism

"Grease 2" was considered a flop to critics and audience members. It did not live up to the hype as the previous movie had. Along with criticism, most of the songs that were sung such as "Score Tonight", "Do It For Your Country" and "Reproduction" did not connect with the storyline at all. The most significant milestone for which this movie would be remembered was that it was Michelle Pfeiffer's first major role. While the music was catchy, the songs did not reflect the times in which the movie was set as its predecessor did. "Grease" brought a wave of nostalgia for 1950s music and featured some old standards sung by Sha Na Na. "Grease 2" had no songs from the early 1960s, except for a strain of "Our Day Will Come" playing on a radio in the Bowl-A-Rama.

Box Office and Business

"Grease 2" earned just over $15 million worldwide. Part of this failure can be attributed to the fact that it opened in the same weekend as the blockbuster "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". Fact|date=August 2008

ee also

*"Grease"

External links

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