'The Apple', this Euro-trash musical that Shocking Videos called "extraordinarily, stuperfyingly, painfully 'for god's sakes turn it off, I tell you anything you want to know' bad", is so notorious that this title deserves its own large web site. Stories like angry attendees at the premiere screening throwing their free copies of the movie's soundtrack at the screen are stuff of legend!
TWO:
Allen Carr did approach Olivia about starring in 'Can't Stop The Music', but both couldn't agree on salary and Valerie Parnine was cast instead.
THREE:
Even though the movie is not a musical, Flash Gordon can be easily compared to Xanadu. Both movies contain flashy costumes (though Flash beats Xanadu on that category by 250 to 1), both had a profound influence of the 1940's in their design, the opening credits and some of the SFX were done by the same company (R/Greensburg), both were distributed by Universal Studios, the film scores were done by rock groups known for their elaborate sound (Xanadu originally had Jeff Lynne of ELO for this chore and Flash had Queen) and both had hit singles from their soundtracks, though Flash Gordon only had one, it was the main theme called 'Flash!'.
FOUR:
For a long time, there were speculations as to whether or not the music was "performed" by ELO was really ELO or it was merely Lynne utilizing his considerable talents as a multi-instrumentalists. This matter was cleared up in a 1997 radio interview with Bev Bevan as he explained that Olivia flew to ELO's regular recording studio in Germany (with her two assistance in tow) and recorded the theme song herself.
FIVE:
When this author approached Peter Kuper and asked him about this old project, he froze and, thankfully, began to laugh. He said that it was indeed a rush job and he became involved only because his roommate was behind the stiff deadline and needed help coloring a page. It was believed that Marvel was also working on a similar project for the Sgt. Pepper movie, but it fell through at the last minute.
Of course, all this format assembly line talk can not be complete without mentioning the latest digital chapter, The Digital Video Disc: DVD. Released in 1999, 'Xanadu' made it to this level as a widescreen edition with some vary sparse 'production notes' and very little else. Some fans were disappointed that the disc didn't contain more important bonus features like deleted scenes and the 'Making Xanadu' TV special, but the disc did have that all-too rare Xanadu movie trailer, which featured different (abet very brief) versions and re-mixes of many of the songs.
SEVEN:
The resurgence behind Xanadu might be traced as far back as 1985, thanks to a film starring Crispin Glover called The Orkey Kid. In it, Glover's character participates in a local talent contest by weirdly impersonating Olivia and sings 'Magic'. The history behind THAT film included an earlier version staring a unknown Sean Penn which was called Beaver II (years later, Penn told a interviewer that if people wanted to get an idea of who he really was they should see the tape, saying "if people watched that thing they'd leave me alone in restaurants") and a 1979 documentary that inspired the two previous films, The Beaver Kid. This time, the 'Kid' turns out to be a real life hyperactive Salt Lake City teenager named 'Gary' who claimed to have an "alternate" personality named 'Olivia Newton Dawn' and performs the original feat at the high school talent show in front of the camera.
EIGHT:
Patrik Guttenbacher, the co-author of the elaborately researched 1996 book on ELO, 'Unexpected Messages', recently remarked: "The short instrumental version that plays over the cast credits was mentioned in the book as Instrumental of Xanadu but it's real title is XANADU OVERTURE, according to [ELO archivist] Rob Caiger who found the tape box (11/20/02). The Xanadu Overture was the basic track, of which Jeff Lynne reworked 'Love Changes All' in 2000."
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