Man, I just love that movie from the 70s about a blonde outcast, an Alpha mean girl, a big high school dance, and a big finale with John Travolta in a flying car, don’t you?

I just rewatched DePalma’s brilliant Carrie, and couldn’t help but notice at least the superficial similarities between it and Grease - both fantasies about high school popularity, in-groups, out-groups, and the hormonal feverishness that can make a powderkeg of it all, whether the resulting combustion is a high-intensity dance-off or, y’know, an actual combustion. Sure, one is a feel-good (ish) piece of recursive nostalgia - first for the 50s it depicts, second for the 70s that spawned it, and then probably for the viewer, the 80s that let you rent the tape of it - and the other is a pervy, voyeuristic mini-epic (I’ll leave it to you to determine which is which), but what is a theme if not an idea in search of varied executions?

And sure, this series of bootleg spots has a large (if not guiding) piss-take element to it, but it’s also an opportunity to study the materials I’m working with - Pino Donaggio’s beyond-melodramatic score for Carrie, how Bill Butler’s gorgeous widescreen cinematography frames Patricia Birch’s exuberant choreography in Grease, and how much the Regina Georges of the world will always owe a debt of gratitude to the founder of the feast, Stockard Channing’s iconic Rizzo.

Long story short - yeah, I’m poking fun with contrasts of innocence and devilishness, or seriousness and fluff, or absolute cinema with the once-disposable pre-streaming medium of episodic tv, but I can’t see myself working with material that doesn’t have strong enough sails to withstand my gently taking the wind out of them, or spending time with footage I don’t know, respect, and love*.

(Cards on the table, I’m more a fan of Grease 2 than Grease, but that misunderstood sequel - with its himbo protagonist and motorcycle hijinks in place of car stunts - doesn’t align nearly as well with Carrie)

SANDY (1976)
Trailer by Gradet Bootleg / The Hatbeard Co.
Directed by Randal Kleiser
Written by Bronte Woodard* and Allan Carr, based on the original music by Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey
Produced by Allan Carr, Robert Stigwood
DP: Bill Butler
Editor: John F. Burnett
Ms. Newton-John’s Wardrobe: Wolsky’s of Hollywood
Trailer Music by Pino Donaggio

*(Note: the misspelling of Woodard’s** name in the trailer is a nod to the original Carrie trailer spelling its source author’s name as “Steven King”; it’s one of three Carrie-specific easter eggs for the eagle-eyed among you)

**(Note: Ok, it was an actual mistake that I made, which I’m not retconning into a reference, but the “Steven King” thing is true, so you say typo, I say happy accident)