Regarding the ending. It was perfect. It could not have been improved on IMHO. It was literally a perfect ending to a brilliant movie and I use the word brilliant sparingly although the 70’s had some outstanding movies (Young Frankenstein is another I love beyond words).
Here is why I think the ending was nothing short of perfection.
This story was about Danny and Sandy. That can’t be argued. They were 1A and 1B from the opening scene. It was their story so the ending had to feature them in a major way and, in terms of story telling, they virtually had to have an arc (one or both). Having Sandy choose, she did it by choice, not because Danny asked her to change or demanded that she change, but having her vamp up to totally get his attention was the perfect way to end the story.
If we go with “she was fine the way she was” then how does the movie end? How could it have ended better? A hand shake and a back rub? No dramatic tension there. Sandy vamped up and it was memorable, classic, awesome, unforgettable, controversial, etc.
The perfect ending to a story about Danny and Sandy.
I think I’d like it better if Sandy reacted to Danny’s letter sweater. Then there would be a little “Gift of the Magi” quality to the ending. But that’s not what happens.
Never liked Grease. Never wanted to be any character in it, or felt that I was represented in it.
When it first came out, I remember vividly a conversation with a young high school teacher – i.e., a late fifties teenager – who was furious that her youth was being represented in a way that had nothing to do with the reality she had lived. Wrong music, wrong clothes, wrong attitudes, wrong everything.
I would definitely be Sandy. The “good-girl” Sandy. (Was told I looked like that when I was young.)
Not crazy about the story, (I won’t even let my younger kids watch it) but it is fun entertainment if you don’t take it too seriously, don’t analyze it.
I’ve noticed that in most movie relationships, the woman usually has to do a lot more compromising/sacrificing than the man.
I’d probably be Principal McGee, based on the movie characterization.
Many years ago, we saw a local stage production of Grease as part of DS’s Bar Mitzvah celebration and I was struck by two things. First, the stage production was considerably raunchier than the movie. Innuendo was much more blatant. Second, Danny and Sandy were just one of three (or was it four) major relationships. All of them had relatively equal time and significance, and there were clearly multiple major characters rather than two leads and supporting cast.
I know there have been many iterations of the stage play over the years; the one we saw was based on the original Chicago stage production.
