See The Original, Unused Ending To Election

A little-known fact about Election, the 1999 film that featured Reese Witherspoon as the tightly-wound Tracy Flick and Matthew Broderick as her smarmy civics teacher: the movie’s original ending was not the one you saw in theaters. (If you haven’t seen the movie, obvious spoilers ahead.)

The first-edition ending seen here was never packaged as a DVD extra — in fact, the only reason we’re able to view this today is because a VHS tape with an early cut of the film was found at a local flea market. From the video’s YouTube page, the uploader reveals that he “bought a box of old VHS tapes at the Farmers Market in Wilmington, DE for $5 on Mothers Day. I had no idea that this working print was included in the box when I purchased it.”

In the above six minutes, we discover that Mr. McAllister never made it to New York City. Instead, he stayed in town to work a new job as a car salesman, which the audience discovers when Tracy decides to visit him before she goes away to college. This version stayed true to the novel by Tom Perrotta — but didn’t sit well with test audiences in its early viewing stages. Thus, a new theatrical ending was written and reshot and audiences were none the wiser. That is, until now.

Watch The Never Before Seen Original Ending of Alexander Payne’s ‘Election’ [/Film]