Is Desperately Seeking Susan a great movie? No, not by any means. But: Madonna’s video for Into the Groove (from the Susan soundtrack and composed primarily of footage from the film) is probably the greatest made-for-MTV movie commercial of all time.

In condensing the film’s disparate pleasures into a loop of shots, which are then used as padding for new footage of Madonna writhing around in a white teddy, the advertisement contains everything good about the film, but with healthy extra helpings of celebrity and sex. It is, in fact, too good–the video makes the film itself entirely superfluous. Madonna’s star power was supposed to help sell Susan Seidelman’s movie; instead, Madonna used the raw materials of the film to reify her own star image, which she then sold back to the record-buying public.

I bring this up because a deal has been struck to adapt Susan as a stage musical. Seidelman doesn’t appear to be involved, but, as if someone is trying to rescue the source material from having been irretrievably re-contextualized by its second-billed star, all traces of Madonna’s stamp on Susan have been removed. The Desperately Seeking Susan brand is basically being salvaged as a vehicle for a jukebox musical featuring the songs of Blondie. Debbie Harry, who is writing one new song for the show, says this:

It’s a live show so it is going to be different to the film, probably more light-hearted. It’s such a thrill to be part of it. It’s about people making discoveries about themselves.

If Blondie want to be Abba, that’s fine. But why would Harry–who has always struck me as one of the few individualists in the pantheon of 80s celebrities–be so eager to repurpose another iconic blondie’s sloppy seconds?