Survival of Dana

Survival of Dana is a 1979 CBS made-for-TV film starring Melissa Sue Anderson, Robert Carradine, Talia Balsam (Martin Balsam's only child), Marion Ross and Judge Reinhold in his first film and Anderson in her first non-Mary Ingalls role as a modern-day "bad" girl while on hiatus from Little House on the Prairie and one of Ross' other TV roles during Happy Days' primetime run. It was directed by Jack Starrett, whose only child, Jennifer, plays one of the antisocial clique's members ("Lynn") and is a teenage drama about conflicting adolescent values in affluent societies, as the titular youth (Anderson) is transferred from Fargo, North Dakota to Los Angeles' suburban San Fernando Valley after her parents' divorce.

Plot

Dana Lee Gilbert (Anderson) is a newcomer to the Valley's Tremont High School, the scene of late night vandalism by a suburban car clique led by Carradine called "The Roadrunners" the night before her arrival. After her first day at Tremont, she watches the school's ice skating team practice and waits for her grandmother at a shopping mall to buy some new clothes, but Rona's (Balsam) shoplifting causes them both to be arrested. Dana's life then goes downhill in a hurry and only a deadly tragedy among her new gangbanger friends gets her back on the right track.