Xanadu (film)

Xanadu is a 1980 musical/romance film directed by Robert Greenwald. It stars Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck and Gene Kelly and features music by Newton-John, ELO, UK pop idol Cliff Richard, and the San Francisco-based art-rock band, "The Tubes".

The film had little success at the box office, but the soundtrack was somewhat more successful and contained a many hits, including the title track, "Magic", "Suddenly", and "I'm Alive". While the film was panned by critics, it has endured to become a camp classic, with millions of fans regarding "Xanadu" as a guilty pleasure. "Xanadu" appeals to many because of its music, its over-the-top sets, costumes, and choreography, but mostly because of its "so-bad-its-good" aesthetic. The film also functions as a nostalgic paean to the early 1980s, as the film attempted to capture the zeitgeist of the time, including the era's music, clothing, and styles. Rollerskating, a popular hobby in the late 1970s and early 1980s, is featured prominently in the film.

Headlining the film were Olivia Newton-John (who, at the time, was fresh from her star turn in Grease) and the legendary Gene Kelly. Hearing these "A-list" stars uttering the film's D-grade dialogue only amplified the hokiness of the script.

Plot summary

The movie tells the story of Sonny Malone (Beck), a talented artist who has failed to achieve independence and must return to his job painting larger versions of album covers for record store windows (commercial work with no artistic reward). Upon returning to this job, he finds an album cover with Kira, a beautiful woman on it (Newton-John) and in trying to track her down, comes into contact with a has-been Big band orchestra leader, Danny McGuire (Kelly). Danny lost his muse in the 1940s, Sonny has not yet found his muse.

Things become complicated (as much as they do in movies of this sort) as Kira helps the two men realize their dream of opening a nightclub, while also falling in love with Sonny. Ultimately, she has to make a choice about how she feels about him to her parents, who are Greek gods, since Kira is actually Terpsichore, the muse of dancing.

Tagline: A fantasy. A musical. A place where dreams come true.

Trivia

This film is Gene Kelly's last starring role in a picture (he appeared in a film called Action U.S.A. 9 years later, but it was a minor appearance). Kelly was a world-class dancer in movies, most famous for his role in the film Singin' in the Rain, and the iconic image of his dancing in the title track adorns many movie houses and Hollywood retrospectives. Xanadu, a relatively minor film, is therefore blessed with his last dance on film. In this film, Kelly is also shown on roller skates during a musical number, which is a reference to a similar routine he performed in It's Only Fair Weather.

The title of the film, Xanadu, is a reference to a poem, "Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment." by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (published in 1816). In the poem, Xanadu is the location of a "stately pleasure dome" built by Kubla Khan. Under the influence of drugs, Coleridge had begun work on this poem, intended to be of epic proportions, when he was interrupted by a man from Porlock. This person detained Coleridge long enough for him to lose his train of thought after returning to his desk, and the poem was never completed. That is, Coleridge had lost his muse.

This iconic reference is also used in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane as the name for the title characters' ostentatious estate.

External links

• Template:Imdb title
• Review, sound clips, screenshots, and a short video clip for Xanadu (http://www.badmovies.org/movies/xanadu/index.html)de:Xanadu (Film)

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