I’m so confused.
If anyone can explain to me what the gods on Mount Olympus care about roller rinks, I’d be so grateful.
In the cult favorite “Xanadu,” we meet Sonny Malone, an artist who works taking album covers and painting them extra large for advertisement purposes. He wants to create something more out of his life but doesn’t know how to break out of the rut he’s in. While out wandering around one day, trying to figure out his life, a beautiful woman roller skates up to him, kisses him, then skates off.
When he’s given the assignment to enlarge a cover for an album by “The Nine Sisters,” he’s surprised to see that the girl on the cover is the same one who kissed him. As he works on the cover, he becomes obsessed with finding out who she is. They do meet, and he learns that her name is Kira (Olivia Newton-John).
Meanwhile, Sonny makes friends with an old club owner named Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) and Kira tells them they should go into business together. As Sonny and Danny kick around ideas for starting a new night club, Kira reveals that she’s actually one of the Muses from Mount Olympus, and she has come to inspire Sonny and Danny in their dream. Even more, she’s going to help them put a new spin on their idea – their club should be a roller rink.
We see Sonny follow Kira back to Mount Olympus to plead with Zeus to let her stay with him. (That was pretty wild.) In the end, Zeus lets Kira stay, and she becomes a waitress at the club.
There were so many things fundamentally strange about this movie. I’m just not sure how Gene Kelly got himself mixed up in this, or how a world class dancer like him had to dance with Olivia Newton-John. It was interesting to me that they gave him the same name he had in “Cover Girl,” that of Danny McGuire.
My other thoughts – the acting was corny, the dialogue was sad, the idea that roller skating is the answer to life’s problems was just whacky. I can see why this film has such a cult following – it would take a cult to be able to get into it. However, two of Olivia’s biggest hits came from this film, “Suddenly” and “Magic,” and we all know the song “Xanadu.”
This film was rated PG.
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