Robert Greenwald
Xanadu

Robert Greenwald - Xanadu -1980

Can't take any more musicals: They are everywhere, in cinemas, at the greengrocer's, on billboards, with planetary titles, American, Italian... Last Sunday evening, while channel surfing, what do I see at a late hour? Xanaduuuuuuu the last great Hollywood musical, starring Olivia Newton John and the music of ELO. Watching it again, it seemed like a Fellini-esque circus of musical - I think I'm in Rome, full of quotes, expensive, kaleidoscopic, and absurd, deserving a study of its own, a thesis on the history of cinematic flops. Yet, this film has its own charm. I will proceed at random among trivia and casting.
Xanadu was bombed as a flop at the box office, but simultaneously it had a huge record success, becoming a creeping cult movie... So much so that today it’s even a musical on Broadway; the protagonists, Beck and Newton John, gradually disappeared from the radar.

Xanadu is the remake of Down to Earth - Italian title Giù sulla Terra - starring Rita Hayworth, it's a roller skate movie - in '80 everyone was on skates and skateboards, true for those who were there - and it won the Razzie Award as the worst musical of the year, as well as nominations for worst lead actors. But the effects were beautiful for the time, from graphic animation to optical effects with neon tubes around the figures, and there's a whole kitschy era between the late '70s and early '80s passing before your eyes: Fiorucci fashion shows, fresh hip-pop boys, Disney-style animations, hair puffed up with sunsilk, the Tubes, Gene Kelly in a huge pinball machine, the location of Xanadu, which is the Pan Pacific Auditorium on 7600 W Beverly Blvd in LA, Olivia, fresh-faced, skating with warmlegs, Disco diva with strange rings and armpit-length dresses, pop chanteuse for teens, then in '40s military garb as a tap dancer, country-gal, leopard-striped, actually tiger-striped... an endless parade.

The plot features an italodisco Sonny Malone, played by a somnambulant Michael Beck, (ex-Warrior of the night!) who works as a drafter at "Airflo Dischi," tyrannized by his boss, Simpson, and whenever possible, he takes refuge in the graphic fantasies of a woman from Monster in Law. One day, skating along the streets of the seaside city, Venice Beach, he meets the blonde Kira, a mysterious skater who kisses him and vanishes. He later meets Danny McGuire, no less than Gene Kelly, a former clarinetist who became a millionaire through other means: Sonny meets him on the beach and they become friends. In charge of enlarging a mural poster of a record cover, Malone notices the resemblance of the girl depicted therein with Kira, who, in the meantime, continues to appear and disappear. Sonny and Kira's meetings end up occurring in an abandoned and grandiose venue. The girl proposes to modernize and reopen the venue, which will be called Xanadu. Sonny finds Danny, a former music impresario in Glenn Miller's time, enthusiastic and a brilliant achiever who elects him as a partner. But Sonny cannot imagine the show without Kira; after her last appearance, he headstrongly enters the mural and with the desperate power of love climbs to Parnassus, because Kira is one of the muses, Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, descended to show miracles and, contrary to the rules of her earthly missions, has fallen in love; she manages to obtain permission from daddy Zeus to descend to Earth as a "star" at the Xanadu opening; among Lsd lights and final blasts of the Orchestra, Kira returns among the gods from where she came but...

Xanadu: freakin nostalgia of old musicals mixed by a d.j. director with late '70s, dazzling glitter-ball of fashions and roller-disco music. This film was not created to sway political opinions, cure world hunger, or make you a better person: it was filmed to make you dream: let yourself be mesmerized by the colors, the blue neon aura of the muses, and most importantly, by the music... see the album review (sounds like a real ad?).