"Sandy" (Olivia Newton John) is a well brought up young girl who meets and falls in love with "Danny" (John Travolta) during summer break in late 1950's California. When they both start high school, though, we discover she to be the archetypical preppie-type who hangs about with Stockard Channing's "Pink Ladies" and he the leader of the "T-Birds" - the school's leather and white T-shirt clad greasers. Their obvious attraction to each other is hemmed in by their respective roles at school and they've got to find a way to sort it out! Channing is the star for me in this film. She's great as "Rizzo" - loads of attitude, earthy wisdom and "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" - that helps "Sandy" to hook her man. Along with some entertainingly well choreographed dance routines, the other songs are superb too - a mixture of toe tappers and sloppy ballads from the likes of Frankie Valli, Frankie Avalon and of course, the two stars with "You're the One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" that frequently outdo the rather banal script. It's a gently engaging, slightly competitive love story that, though a bit dated now, was certainly an important film as I grew up!
