Grease 2 (1982)

An English student at a 1960s American high school has to prove himself to the leader of a girls' gang whose members can only date greasers.

Director:

Patricia Birch

Writers:

Ken Finkleman, Jim Jacobs (characters)

Stars:

Michelle Pfeiffer, Maxwell Caulfield, Lorna Luft

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Maxwell Caulfield	...	Michael
Michelle Pfeiffer	...	Stephanie
Lorna Luft	...	Paulette
Maureen Teefy	...	Sharon
Alison Price	...	Rhonda
Pamela Adlon	...	Dolores (as Pamela Segall)
Adrian Zmed	...	Nogerelli
Peter Frechette	...	DiMucci
Christopher McDonald	...	Goose
Leif Green	...	Davey
Didi Conn	...	Frenchy
Eve Arden	...	Miss McGee
Sid Caesar	...	Coach Calhoun
Dody Goodman	...	Blanche
Tab Hunter	...	Mr. Stuart

Storyline

Return to rockin' Rydell High for a whole new term! It's 1961, two years after the original Grease gang graduated, and there's a new crop of seniors - and new members of the coolest cliques on campus, the Pink Ladies and T-Birds. Michael Carrington is the new kid in school - but he's been branded a brainiac. Can he fix up an old motorcycle, don a leather jacket, avoid a rumble with the leader of the T-Birds, and win the heart of Pink Lady Stephanie Zinone? He's surely going to try!

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Plot Keywords:

school | pink ladies | leather jacket | student | greaser | 

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Taglines:

Grease is still the word!

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Musical | Romance

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 June 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Son of Grease

Filming Locations:

The Pink Motel & Cadillac Jack's Diner, 9457 San Fernando Road, Sun Valley, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$13,200,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,645,411, 13 June 1982, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$15,171,476

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby (35 mm prints) 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The theatrical feature film debut for Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland, and half-sister of Liza Minnelli'.

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Goofs

Johnny and Stephanie are trying to paddle the raft when Michael shows up. A few seconds later he jumps the pool on his motorcycle and we can see that now Johnny and Stephanie aren't moving at all, and the water is suddenly completely still. On top of that, a second later one of the motorcycle gang jumps his bike into the pool and it's once again calm. Then his buddy also tries to jump the pool right after him and the water is still somehow flat as a pancake when he hits it.

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Quotes

Paulette Rebchuck: [Walking across football field] So, what's the story with you and Johnny?
Stephanie Zinone: Let's just say I outgrew him over the summer.
Paulette Rebchuck: Yeah, well, he sure hasn't lost the hots for you.
Stephanie Zinone: Johnny just hasn't learned when you're dead, lie down. Besides, there's gotta be more to life than just makin' out.
Paulette Rebchuck: Y'know, I never thought of it that way!

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Connections

Referenced in Lemonade Mouth (2011)

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Soundtracks

We'll Be Together
Music and Lyrics by Bob Morrison and Johnny MacRae
Orchestra arranged and conducted by Artie Butler
Performed by Maxwell Caulfield, Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter Frechette, Lorna Luft, Maureen Teefy and Adrian Zmed

User Reviews

Good at the time, but didn't age so well...

Depending on when you saw this film relative to when you saw the original "Grease," your viewpoints probably differ as to the quality of this movie.

I saw both within a month of each other at age 13. I hated the original and loved this one.

As I've gotten older, I've come to recognize that the original is a better piece of work, overall. The music from the original is better when taken as a whole. The supporting cast of the original has better players. The storyline doesn't seem as convoluted at times.

But there's something about this movie that holds on to you. It appeals much more to the age group pictured in the movie (i.e., junior-high and high-schoolers). The song "Cool Rider" and the scenes that accompany it in the movie rival anything in the original.

The dialog is better in places and the interplay between the male and female leads are better, I believe, than in the original. The original movie's pairing of Travolta and Newton-John gave us a dimwit trying to woo a goodie-two-shoes girl whose performance was oftentimes wooden and uncomfortable. This one gives us Caulfield and Pfeiffer, and the interplay between an intelligent, wise-beyond-his-years male lead and the "wild child" female lead.

Adrian Zmed's supporting performance as Johnny still cracks me up and is one of the few performances from this movie that still entertain me as an adult.

That's because outside of the performances of accomplished character actors Christopher McDonald, Eve Arden and Dody Goodman, the rest of this cast is just plain bad. Some of it is bad acting, some of it is miscasting and a lot of it is bad writing.

What we're left with today, 20-something years later, is a movie that made a really good attempt to build on the original, but in the end, was the soufflé that fell. It's still better than most want to admit, but it could have stood a couple of rewrites and a little more attention to detail in the prospective cast interview room.