brunobaby

A couple of years ago, I bought the DVD for the cult classic "Times Square" so I could rip "Damn Dog" for my iTunes. I'd remembered the movie fondly from 25 years ago because of its teen rebellion theme and punk rock soundtrack, a first in a mainstream picture. Watching it as an adult, I quit about halfway through. Yeah right, I told myself, armed robbery is a hoot and believe you me, the topless place would make a 13-year-old girl dance topless or they would throw her little tweener ass out on the street. Bye bye, honey, go back home to Daddy.

I checked Amazon last week and the DVD is out of print and fetching upwards of $60.00. So I finished watching it last night and if you take it as a gritty version of those old MGM movie musicals, it's kinda fun. The director hadn't intended it to be that way, but producer Robert Stigwood was looking for a punk version of "Saturday Night Fever" and grafted some Bee Gees cuts onto the soundtrack to create a double soundtrack album--now also out of print--and also played down the lesbian angle between the two young protagonists. Also, Pammy doesn't have to dance topless because Trini Alvarado, who played Pammy, didn't want to dance topless.

I learned these salient facts from watching it with the running commentary by director Allan Moyle and Robin Johnson, who played streetwise manic-depressive Nicky. I'm only about halfway through this, but that's for lack of time, not interest. I'm going to finish watching it sometime this week and then put the video up for sale.

In the years since I first saw this movie, I've met all too many people like Nicky Marotta and their charm wears thin after a while. In the end, the Establishment is going to win, and the proof of this is to look at the Times Square in the movie, and then look at Times Square now. But a Nicky tempered by Prozac and Pammy's common sense wouldn't be a bad way to go through life.