Xanadu (film)

Xanadu

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Greenwald
Produced by
Written by
  • Richard Christian Danus
  • Marc Reid Rubel
Starring
Music by Barry De Vorzon
Cinematography Victor J. Kemper
Edited by Dennis Virkler
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Studios
Release dates
  • August 8, 1980 (1980-08-08)
Running time
 96 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $20 million
Box office $22.8 million

Xanadu is a 1980 American romantic musical fantasy film written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the nightclub in the film, which takes its name from Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. This city appears in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poem that is quoted in the film. The film's plot was inspired by 1947's Down to Earth.

Xanadu stars Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck, and Gene Kelly, and features music by Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Cliff Richard, and The Tubes. The film also features animation by Don Bluth.

A box office flop, Xanadu earned mixed to negative critical reviews and was an inspiration for the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year. Despite the lacklustre performance of the film, the soundtrack album became a huge commercial success around the world, and was certified double platinum in the United States. The song "Magic" was a U.S. number one hit for Newton-John, and the title track (by Newton-John and ELO) reached number one in the UK and several other countries around the world.

Plot

Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) is a talented artist who dreams of fame beyond his job, which is the non-creative task of painting larger versions of album covers for record-store window advertisements. As the film opens, Sonny is broke and on the verge of giving up his dream. Having quit his day job to try to make a living as a freelance artist, but having failed to make any money or find some inspiration at it, Sonny returns to his old job at AirFlo Records. After some humorous run-ins with his imperious boss and nemesis, Simpson (James Sloyan), he resumes painting record covers.

At work, Sonny is told to paint an album cover for a group called The Nine Sisters. The cover features a beautiful woman (Olivia Newton-John) in front of an art deco auditorium, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium. This same woman collided with him earlier that day, kissed him, then roller-skated away, and Sonny becomes obsessed with finding her, and is frustrated when neither the record company nor the photographer know who she is. While looking for her, he hears Daniel "Danny" McGuire (Gene Kelly) playing clarinet on the beach. Right after Sonny talks about his career and Danny mentions that he used to be in the music business, Sonny sees the woman rollerskating and uses a stranger's motorcycle to go after her, but she tricks him into falling off a pier into the water before disappearing again. He finds the woman at the same auditorium on the cover, now abandoned, practicing her roller-skating in private. She assures him they will see each other again, and identifies herself as Kira, but she will not tell him anything else about herself. Unbeknownst to Sonny, Kira is one of nine mysterious and beautiful women who sprang to life from a local mural in town near the beach.

Sonny and Danny meet again, and they go to Danny's house to listen to a Glenn Miller record, which Danny reveals he played clarinet on. Sonny notices a photograph of a woman inside the record booklet, who bears a startling resemblance to Kira. Danny, a has-been big band orchestra leader turned construction mogul, credits her as his muse as he fell in love with her in the 1940s, but after she left, he has been unable to be inspired for his music. Danny reveals to Sonny that he hopes to launch a nightclub, but is having trouble finding the right place. He asks Sonny to help him find a place, and after Sonny leaves, imagines a reunion with the woman on the record.

When Kira catches Sonny painting her on the enlarged cover at his workplace at night, he explains it's the first time he's ever cared about what he's painted in a long time. He then explains Danny's idea of launching a nightclub, so Kira suggests the Pan-Pacific as its location, saying she thinks it has a special aura. After he sneaks Kira into one of Simpson's studio, where they share their first dance together, she drags him back to the Pan-Pacific, urging him to see it as an opportunity to find something he can believe in.

The next day, Sonny invites Danny to explore the auditorium. Although Danny envisions a big band orchestra with 1940s elegance and Sonny envisions a hard rock band with 1980s modern style, the two men end up intertwining their ideas together and form a partnership in the club. Danny then meets Kira, who suggests the name "Xanadu" for the club through a quote. Although Danny is startled at first because of her resemblance to his former muse and the fact that they know the same quote, he and Danny agree with her on the name. Sonny later announces to Simpson that he is firing himself so he can devote to his nightclub, and he, Danny and Kira go downtown to find props, dancers and clothes for the club.

During this time, Kira and Sonny develop a romantic relationship and fall in love, but this presents a problem, which Kira later reveals to Sonny on the night before Xanadu's grand opening is because she is actually an Olympian Muse whose real name is Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance. The other eight women from the beginning of the film are her sisters and fellow goddesses, the Muses, and the mural is actually a portal of sorts and their point of entry to Earth. The Muses visit Earth often to help inspire others to pursue their dreams and desires, but in Kira's case, she has violated the rules by which Muses are supposed to conduct themselves, as she was only supposed to inspire Sonny but has ended up falling in love with him as well. Feeling she has no other choice, she decides to leave, telling Sonny she will always love him.

The day of the opening, heartbroken at Kira's departure, Sonny is losing faith in the idea of Xanadu, until Danny urges him to find her and not give up on her, not wanting Sonny to make the same mistakes as he did. Sonny takes this as food for thought and rollerskates all over town looking for Kira, eventually coming across the same mural where she entered Earth. Sonny enters through the mural into the timeless realm of the Olympian gods where he finds Kira, where her parents, the Greek gods Zeus (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and Mnemosyne(Coral Browne), have recalled her, and professes his love for her. A short debate between Sonny and Zeus occurs, with Mnemosyne interceding on behalf of Kira and Sonny. Kira herself then enters the discussion, saying the emotions she has toward Sonny are new to her; if only they could have one more night together, Sonny's dream of success for the nightclub Xanadu could come true. Zeus ultimately sends Sonny back to Earth. After Kira expresses her feelings for Sonny, Zeus and Mnemosyne decide to let Kira go to him for a "moment, or maybe forever." They cannot keep these straight because mortal time confuses them, and the audience is left to wonder her fate.

In the finale, Kira and the Muses perform for a packed house at Xanadu's grand opening, and after Kira's final song, the Muses all return to the realm of the gods in spectacular fashion. With their departure, Sonny is understandably depressed. But that quickly changes when Danny has one of the waitresses bring Sonny a drink, because the waitress who brings him the drink looks exactly like Kira. Sonny approaches this seeming double and says he would just like to talk to her. The film ends with the two of them talking, in silhouette, as the credits begin to roll.

Cast

The Muses

Members of the Tubes

Cast notes:

Musical numbers

The album grouped Olivia Newton-John (ONJ) and ELO's songs into the opposite sides of the album, and some tunes were excluded from the album. The following is the actual order in the film:

Themes

The plot of the 1947 film Down to Earth was loosely used as the basis for Xanadu. In the film, Rita Hayworth played Terpsichore, opposite male lead Larry Parks, who played a producer of stage plays.

Production

Pan-Pacific Auditorium transformed into "Xanadu" via special effects.

The film was originally conceived as a relatively low-budget roller disco picture. As a number of prominent, A-list performers joined the production, it evolved into a much larger project, while retaining rollerskating as a recurring theme, especially in the final scenes of the club's opening night.

Earlier versions of the story established that Sonny was the artist who created the mural from which the nine goddess sisters emerge. This provided a much stronger explanation for the muses' interest in helping him achieve artistic success. However, continual rewrites and editing during production caused this plot point to be lost, except for one line spoken by Sonny as he laments his failure as a freelance artist; "I paint his van...I paint somebody else's mural...". The Marvel Comics adaptation published as Marvel Super Special #17[2] retained the more strongly emphasized connection between Sonny and the painting.

Danny McGuire, who appeared in Cover Girl, also appears in 'Xanadu' and was Kelly's final film role, except for compilation films of the That's Entertainment! series. Kenny Ortega and Jerry Trent served as choreographers.

The Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles was used for exterior shots of the nightclub. Xanadu's nightclub interior was built on Stage 4 of the Hollywood Center Studios (1040 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood) beginning in 1979.[3] Sonny refers to the Auditorium as "a dump", which was a fair characterization of the Pan-Pacific by then. Danny jokes that "they used to have wrestling here", which was a true statement about the Auditorium. The building would be consumed by fire a decade later.

Reception

Xanadu has generally earned mixed to negative reviews. For example, Roger Ebert gave the film two stars, describing the film as "a mushy and limp musical fantasy" with a confused story, redeemed only by Newton-John's "high spirits" and several strong scenes from Kelly. Moreover, Ebert criticized the choreography, saying "the dance numbers in this movie do not seem to have been conceived for film."[4] He noted that mass dance scenes were not photographed well by cinematographer Victor J. Kemper, who shot at eye level and failed to pick up the larger patterns of dancers, with dancers in the background muddying the movement of the foreground.[4] With a combination of contemporaneous and modern reviews, Xanadu today holds a "Rotten" rating of 39% from the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.[5] The German television show Die schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten (in English The worst movies of all time), in which the hosts Oliver Kalkofe and Peter Rütten present a bad movie in each episode, featured the movie in its third season.

The film barely broke even at the box office in its initial release.[6] A double feature of Xanadu and another musical released at about the same time, Can't Stop the Music, inspired John J. B. Wilson to create the Golden Raspberry Awards (or "Razzies"), an annual event "dishonoring" what is considered the worst in cinema for a given year.[7] Xanadu won the first Razzie for Worst Director and was nominated for six other awards.

Over the years, the film has developed something of a cult audience.[8]

Despite the film's mediocre success, the soundtrack album (UK #2, US #4), however, was a major hit. It was certified Double Platinum in the US and Gold in the UK, and also spent one week atop the Cashbox and Record World Pop Albums charts. The soundtrack contained five Top 20 singles:

Home media

Xanadu was re-released on DVD June 24, 2008. The "Magical Music Edition" features a "Going Back to Xanadu" featurette, the film's theatrical trailer and a photo gallery. A bonus music CD with the soundtrack album was included. The CD was the film's standard soundtrack album, i.e. with no extras such as omitted tracks.

The film was officially released on Blu-ray on March 8th, 2016.

Stage musical

Main article: Xanadu (musical)

A $5 million Broadway musical adaptation of the same name began previews on May 23, 2007, and opened (with Newton-John and songwriter John Farrar in attendance) on July 10, 2007 starring Kerry Butler as Kira, Cheyenne Jackson as Sonny, and Tony Roberts as Danny. In the musical, Kira is the Muse Clio, not Terpsichore. Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa co-starred (in a plot twist new to the Broadway version) as "evil" Muse sisters. The show, which humorously parodied the plot of the film, was a surprise hit, and was nominated for several Tony Awards. The original cast recording was released December 2007. The Broadway production closed on September 28, 2008 after 49 previews and 512 performances.[9] A successful national tour followed.

Awards and nominations

Nominated: Best Female Pop Vocal Performance – Magic Olivia Newton-John
Nominated: Best Major Motion Picture – Family Entertainment
Won: Worst Director (Robert Greenwald)
Nominated: Worst Picture
Nominated: Worst Screenplay
Nominated: Worst Actor (Michael Beck)
Nominated: Worst Actress (Olivia Newton-John)
Nominated: Worst Original Song ("Suspended in Time")
Nominated: Worst "Musical" of Our First 25 Years

See also

References

  1. ↑ "XANADU (A)". British Board of Film Classification. August 19, 1980. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
  2. ↑ Marvel Super Special #17 at the Grand Comics Database
  3. ↑ Don Fields The Xanadu Story
  4. 1 2 Ebert, Roger (September 1, 1980). "Xanadu". Chicago Sun-Times (rogerebert.com). Retrieved October 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes
  6. ↑ Maslin, Janet (August 9, 1980). "Xanadu (1980) MISS NEWTON-JOHN IN 'XANADU'". The New York Times.
  7. ↑ Germain, David (Associated Press) (February 26, 2005). "25 Years of Razzing Hollywood's Stinkers". South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sun-Sentinel Company). p. 7D.
  8. ↑ American Council of Learned Societies (1999). John Arthur Garraty, Mark Christopher Carnes, eds. American national biography 1. Oxford University Press. p. 312. ISBN 978-0-19-520635-7.
  9. ↑ Gans, Andrew "Xanadu Workshop – with Krakowski and Jackson – Presented Jan. 20-21" Playbill, January 20, 2007. Retrieved on January 29, 2007.

External links

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