Grease
![[box cover]](../reviewimgs/g/greasevhs.jpg)
Here's a Missing in Action flick that almost went digital, only to be disappear without a trace. When Paramount first entered the DVD market in August of 1998, one of the first titles they announced was Grease, in part because it's such a popular film, but also probably because it had just returned to the big screen a few months earlier for a brief "20th Anniversary" encore run. However, it was only a matter of weeks before Grease dropped off the release calendar, and there's been nary a squeak from the folks at Paramount Home Video on when the title will arrive, or just exactly why DVD lovers who are also fans of the film were so mercilessly teased. In fact, we have a new term for this: "DVD Baiting," which refers to the malevolent phenomena of being told that an MIA flick is about to arrive on disc, only to have the content-owner withdraw the announcement not long thereafter (cf., Miramax's Fresh, or Warner's special edition of The Big Sleep. And for that matter, where the hell is the 1954 A Star Is Born?).
But we think Grease may be the worst case of DVD Baiting in the format's history, because we shamelessly love this brash, noisy, sugar-coated, and undeniably catchy musical, which has gained a whole new context since John Travolta's return to the Hollywood A-List after a missing-in-action decade of his own. Having enjoyed such neo-Travolta fare as Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Face/Off, and others, we have grown accustomed to his newfound girth, which seems to suit his current persona. But this familiarity only makes his early films that much more stunning. Travolta's enormous talent has allowed him to take on a series of interesting — at times even challenging — roles in the past six years, but in Grease the young man is positively vital, a skinny, captivating amalgam of Brylcream, leather, and testosterone. Joined by an energetic cast that includes '70s diva Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway, the ensemble tears through several numbers that are remarkable simply because not one of them is easily forgotten. "Summer Nights," "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee," "Greased Lightning," "Beauty School Dropout,", "You're the One that I Want," and the three songs created especially for the movie, "Grease," "Sandy," and "Hopelessly Devoted To You" — it's a catalog of classics all in one film.
So why no Grease? The best information we have unearthed so far comes from DVDFile.com, where Peter Bracke and crew note that there are several legal issues surrounding the rights to the soundtrack of the film and that these rights will have to be sorted out before a disc can be released. Furthermore, there was an item on the news wires in 1999 about how Olivia Newton-John had entered into litigation over the amount of residuals she has received over the years, all of which means that Paramount's official stance on a potential Grease DVD is another old song we've all heard before — "There are no plans for a release at this time." Funny how that one just isn't as catchy.