Xanadu Woof! 1980 (PG)

Dorky starvehicle remake (of 1947's “Down to Earth”) eminently of its era, which is now better forgotten. Newton-John is a muse who descends to Earth to help two friends open a roller disco. In the process she proves that as an actor, she's a singer. Kelly attempts to soft hoe some grace into the proceedings, though he seems mystified as anyone as to why he's in the movie. Don Bluth adds an animated sequence. DI'm Alive; The Fall; Don't Walk Away; All Over the World; Xanadu; Magic; Suddenly; Dancing; Suspended in Time. 96m/C VHS, DVD . Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck, Gene Kelly, Sandahl Bergman; D: Robert Greenwald; W: Richard Danus; C: Victor Kemper; M: Barry DeVorzon. Golden Raspberries ‘80: Worst Director (Greenwald).

Xanadu the name of (Shang-tu) of an ancient city in SE Mongolia, as portrayed in Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan (1816). Xanadu is used to convey an impression of a place as almost unattainably luxurious or beautiful; in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane, in which the protagonist is explicitly modelled on the newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, the name of the luxurious residence modelled on Hearst's castle at San Simeon, California, is Xanadu.