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Xanadu
Critically lambasted at the time of release, the 1980 musical Xanadu is a silly remake of the 1947 film Down to Earth that was supposed to make a movie star out of Olivia Newton-John, who was white-hot after the success of Grease, but it pretty much killed the songstress' movie career instead.
Olivia Newton-John plays Kira, a muse who returns to earth for the first time since the 1940's to unite a penniless artist (Michael Beck) with a former big band musician (Gene Kelly) so that they can open a nightclub. And this paper-thin premise lays the groundwork for one of the worst musical ever made.
There's not a whole lot going on here that really works...the screenplay is simplistic and spoon-fed to the viewer through unimaginative direction that treats the audience like they're six years old. Watching these two grown men chase around this girl who apparently doesn't really want to be caught makes you want to start pulling your hair out about halfway through the movie. These guys keep pinning hopes on changing their lives on this girl who came out of a brick wall and just when they're dreams are about to be realized, she returns to the brick wall and when Beck's character actually jumps through the brick wall to go after her, it becomes impossible to take anything else that happens seriously.
Prior to that, we get a lot of scenes of Beck and Kelly bemoaning the generation gap and how Beck is the overseer of everything that is hip and cool and Kelly being the old coot who has no clue about what's cool anymore. A huge production number called "Dancin" attempts to meld the two different kinds of music being promoted here and neither really wins.
Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra provide the sugary music score, which includes "Suddenly" (a duet with Cliff Richard), "I'm Alive", "Magic", and "Whenever You're Away From Me". Olivia sings a ballad near the end of the second act called "Suspended in Time" which brought the movie to a dead halt.
The only thing that makes this movie worth a look is a chance to watch the iconic Gene Kelly who still can command a movie screen; however, his presence is also a sad reminder of what this film should have been. Though I have to admit it was great seeing Kelly on roller skates again, which brings me to the interminable finale...this musical mess featured four or five different genres of music as well as trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, jugglers, and thousands of dancers on roller skates, documentation that bigger isn't always better. One of the dancers, Matt Lattanzi would marry Olivia Newton-John four years after the release of this travesty. BTW, Gene Kelly's character here is named Danny McGuire, which was also the name of his character in the 1944 musical Cover Girl.
Morbid curiosity is the only reason I can see for watching this one, but you've been warned. Incredibly, somebody actually decided to turn it into a Broadway musical about 30 years later.
Critically lambasted at the time of release, the 1980 musical Xanadu is a silly remake of the 1947 film Down to Earth that was supposed to make a movie star out of Olivia Newton-John, who was white-hot after the success of Grease, but it pretty much killed the songstress' movie career instead.
Olivia Newton-John plays Kira, a muse who returns to earth for the first time since the 1940's to unite a penniless artist (Michael Beck) with a former big band musician (Gene Kelly) so that they can open a nightclub. And this paper-thin premise lays the groundwork for one of the worst musical ever made.
There's not a whole lot going on here that really works...the screenplay is simplistic and spoon-fed to the viewer through unimaginative direction that treats the audience like they're six years old. Watching these two grown men chase around this girl who apparently doesn't really want to be caught makes you want to start pulling your hair out about halfway through the movie. These guys keep pinning hopes on changing their lives on this girl who came out of a brick wall and just when they're dreams are about to be realized, she returns to the brick wall and when Beck's character actually jumps through the brick wall to go after her, it becomes impossible to take anything else that happens seriously.
Prior to that, we get a lot of scenes of Beck and Kelly bemoaning the generation gap and how Beck is the overseer of everything that is hip and cool and Kelly being the old coot who has no clue about what's cool anymore. A huge production number called "Dancin" attempts to meld the two different kinds of music being promoted here and neither really wins.
Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra provide the sugary music score, which includes "Suddenly" (a duet with Cliff Richard), "I'm Alive", "Magic", and "Whenever You're Away From Me". Olivia sings a ballad near the end of the second act called "Suspended in Time" which brought the movie to a dead halt.
The only thing that makes this movie worth a look is a chance to watch the iconic Gene Kelly who still can command a movie screen; however, his presence is also a sad reminder of what this film should have been. Though I have to admit it was great seeing Kelly on roller skates again, which brings me to the interminable finale...this musical mess featured four or five different genres of music as well as trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, jugglers, and thousands of dancers on roller skates, documentation that bigger isn't always better. One of the dancers, Matt Lattanzi would marry Olivia Newton-John four years after the release of this travesty. BTW, Gene Kelly's character here is named Danny McGuire, which was also the name of his character in the 1944 musical Cover Girl.
Morbid curiosity is the only reason I can see for watching this one, but you've been warned. Incredibly, somebody actually decided to turn it into a Broadway musical about 30 years later.