Certain pieces of art, literature, music, and movies, become classics for a reason, usually because they tell age-old tales that the audience loves to see or hear, no matter how many different ways these tales are told. One such classic tale is the movie Oklahoma! (1955), directed by Fred Zimmerman and starring Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae in the lead roles. The other is the movie Grease (1978), directed by Randal Kleiser and starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in the lead roles.
Although filmed over twenty years apart from each other, both movies use the story-telling convention of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and then boy gets girl back. Yet, each movie chooses to tell this tale in its own unique fashion. This paper will compare and contrast the love story of Laurey and Curly in Oklahoma! to that of Danny and Sandy in Grease.
Laurey and Curly are from rural Oklahoma and their tale is set during the frontier movement of the nineteenth century, right in the middle of the conflict between the ranchers and the farmers. Laurey's family are farmers and though her parents have passed away, she is watched over by her Aunt Eller (Charlotte Greenwood), who attempts to guide her through life with parables and sayings. Although Laurey is young, and has the youthful urge to break some of society's rules as demonstrated in some of her slightly flirtatious actions with Jud, she still strives to do right and insists on remaining a lady demanding that Curly treat her as such. At the same time, Curly, her sometime beau, though also young, is more wayward. One gets the impression that Curly has more experience than Laurey and has seen some of the rough side of life. For that reason, he appreciates Laurey's gentleness, as well as her youthfulness. He does not allow Laurey to make the rules in their relationship, however, just as she will not allow him to take advantage of her, as they demonstrate in the song "People Will ...