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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Grease (film)

1978 musical romantic comedy film by Randal Kleiser

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Grease is a 1978 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser from a screenplay by Bronté Woodard and an adaptation by co-producer Allan Carr. The movie is based on the 1971 stage musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The plot follows a greaser, Danny Zuko, and Sandy Olsson, an Australian transfer student, through their summer romance and its aftermath.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Grease (film)” is 1978 musical romantic comedy film by Randal Kleiser. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Grease, film and musical, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978, 1971—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Grease, film and musical is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1978 musical romantic comedy film by Randal Kleiser” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1978 and 1971.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Grease (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Grease (film) primary sources, Grease (film) archive and Grease research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Grease (film)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Grease (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.