Forgotten Teens of the Movie Screen (Pt 1)
I’m currently conducting some research for a piece on teenage rebellion in movies. Quite brilliantly, this has enabled me to unearth some lost teen-film gems . I’m going to share these with you over the next couple of weeks, whether you like it or not. Starting…..now.
‘Times Square’ (Dir Allan Moyle. 1980)
‘Times Square’ tells the story of two sixteen year old girls (played by Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson ) who meet in a psychiatric ward and escape to a New York squat. Here they forge a close bond and form a proto-riot grrrl punk band called ‘The Sleez Sisters’ whilst hanging out in an atmospherically grotty, badass 80’s Big Apple that now almost seems the stuff of myth.
Feminist punk icon Kathleen Hanna (of riot grrrl legends Bikini Kill and Le Tigre) sited ‘Times Square’ as one of her favourite films and also a key influence. The Manic Street Preachers wrote ‘Damn Dog’ in reference to a song featured in the movie. They also quoted the characters dialogue in the liner notes of their 1992 album ‘Generation Terrorists’.
One particularly cool scene features the girls dancing along nasty old 42nd Street at an ungodly hour to Talking Heads’ ‘Life During Wartime’; danger, joy and rock & roll- ‘Time Square’ gives us teenage rebellion in its essence.
The film is most notable for the wonderfully charismatic turns by the two leads (particularly Johnson, who somehow managed to not become a huge star later on) and their brilliant, even poignant on-screen chemistry.
The original cut of the film was ahead of its time insofar as its main characters were shown to be romantically involved, though nervous studio bosses edited out most of the lesbian content for the theatrical release. This footage is unlikely to ever see the light of day as it is currently missing, though the watered down final cut has featured in many gay and lesbian film festivals.
Like many of the best teen movies, ‘Times Square’ is graced with a superb soundtrack, which features the likes of (the aforementioned) Talking Heads, The Ramones, XTC, The Pretenders and The Cure among many others.
Someone find me this album!
