1980 is when the movie musical Xanadu came out. This was only a few years after Grease — which was a huge hit, so naturally musicals came into vogue again and not surprisingly most were crap. Xanada featured Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly (!) and the music of ELO. Sure it was high concept nonsense but I was 16 and didn’t know better. I recall coming away from the movie having rather enjoyed it.
Tonight, for reasons unclear to me I visited YouTube and checked out a number of songs from the movie and yikes, it’s terrible! Yes, the ELO songs are still great but they stand on their own quite nicely. In fact, it’s better if you close your eyes and skip the whole looking-at-the-video part of them. This is a musical that makes Grease look like a masterpiece and that one wanted you to buy Stockard Channing as a teenager.
Horribly dated, horribly shot, campy, kitschy but only somewhat self-aware of it, I get the feeling the actors had fun shooting this and Gene was content to pad the inheritance for his kids but if you can watch this with anything less than your jaw hanging open, unable to articulate how horrible it is, you’re a better person than me!
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band may still be worse, though.
Here’s the clip for All Over the World. Out of context I haven’t the foggiest what exactly was going on here. I think they’re picking out clothes for something. You know how that goes.