Springtime for ‘Xanadu’

As a film, the 1980 Olivia Newton-John roller-disco fable Xanadu was the epic failure to end all epic failures—for a few years, anyway, until Ishtar. Newton-John, very hot off Grease, played Kira as Australian, for reasons unelucidated by the script. Gene Kelly was the aging musician. The male lead, Michael Beck, had starred in The Warriors, the previous year’s Pauline Kael–approved fantasia about New York City street gangs. (Andy Gibb, a Newton-John friend and Beck’s doppelgänger, had originally signed but dropped out, perhaps wisely opting to stay home and snort cocaine instead.)
The stage spoof of the outrageously bad movie about a painter and his muse who find love at a roller disco in Los Angeles opened on Broadway...
The New York Times review is HERE