Director: Lou
Adler
Year: 1982
Rating: 7.0
The film that almost vanished. There was a constant conflict between the scriptwriters - Nancy Dowd and Caroline Coon - and the director Lou Adler. You can sense this divide on the screen. The two writers wanted to make a feminist punk film that can best be summed up in a snatch of dialogue near the end - the lead female singer says to a male musician "I'm everything you ever wanted to be", "A cunt", he replies, "Exactly". Their motto is "We're the Stains and we don't put out". The director is Lou Adler, a very famous music producer (Tapestry), but without a lot of film experience. The feminist message is somewhat watered down by the sexualization of the outfits of the underage girl band. It is a little creepy and perhaps we are more sensitized to that than they were 45 years ago - especially in the age of Epstein.
At any rate, there was a falling out and the scriptwriters departed the film and Nancy Dowd used a different name for her credit - a male one. It was the end in particular that they could not agree on. So, the film was shelved for two years until Adler came up with the ending - an MTV music video signifying that the band had become a success. Not sure what Dowd wanted. Perhaps a more downbeat ending. I liked this one. There are enough films out there about musicians who end up badly. This is a small punk band of three teenage girls who make it out of nowheresville. But by the music video, they seem to have shorn all of their punk roots. I wonder how this would have been if a female like Susan Seidelman had directed this.
The film was finally released by Paramount, but they made no real effort to distribute it and it quickly made its way to the graveyard of neglected films. But in 2008 it was released on DVD and was discovered by a new generation and has become something of a cult film. I had never heard about it till last week when I saw a mention of it on Facebook. It has a very Indie vibe to it, shot on a small budget with an unknown cast - unknown at that time. Two of the girls in the band went on to big careers - Diane Lane who was fifteen when the film was shot and Laura Dern who was thirteen at the time. The main male actor was Ray Winstone who has had a lengthy career as a tough guy. Some of the musicians in the other band - The Looters - were legit punk rockers - Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols and Paul Simonon from the Clash. By 1980, the Punk scene was already beginning to lose steam - and this does nothing to glamorize it. It shows the seedy shitty side of bus touring through small towns and venues that all look the same. And it always seems to be raining. There is nothing about this lifestyle that is appealing, but they do it for the music and for the hope that it will take them somewhere eventually. Out of this crap with the lousy agents and managers looking for a fast buck.
Diane Lane - very recognizable at fifteen - plays Corinne Burns - Third Degree Burns as she tells one interviewer - has attitude - gobs of it - punk fuck you attitude with a fast smartass response to everything. She lives in some no future small town in Pennsylvania with her sister (Marin Kanter) after their mother has died of cancer. What did she die of, she is asked. Breathing. She, her sister and another friend (Laura Dern) form the Fabulous Stains - Corinne is the lead singer and the focal point of the film. She is interviewed on local TV and creates a small splash with her teen rebellion attitude - it gives her enough publicity for a tour to add her to the players. They are pretty awful, and the men make fun of their music and their punk cut haircuts, see-through outfits, her over-sized beret and red eye-shadow - but her songs of brittle female independence gain a following among young females and they begin imitating her hair and clothes look. The film wanders about too much and the pacing is practically non-existent - but it has a true feeling to it - and not to sound like a creepy old man, but Lane is magnetic on and off the stage.
Year: 1982
Rating: 7.0
The film that almost vanished. There was a constant conflict between the scriptwriters - Nancy Dowd and Caroline Coon - and the director Lou Adler. You can sense this divide on the screen. The two writers wanted to make a feminist punk film that can best be summed up in a snatch of dialogue near the end - the lead female singer says to a male musician "I'm everything you ever wanted to be", "A cunt", he replies, "Exactly". Their motto is "We're the Stains and we don't put out". The director is Lou Adler, a very famous music producer (Tapestry), but without a lot of film experience. The feminist message is somewhat watered down by the sexualization of the outfits of the underage girl band. It is a little creepy and perhaps we are more sensitized to that than they were 45 years ago - especially in the age of Epstein.
At any rate, there was a falling out and the scriptwriters departed the film and Nancy Dowd used a different name for her credit - a male one. It was the end in particular that they could not agree on. So, the film was shelved for two years until Adler came up with the ending - an MTV music video signifying that the band had become a success. Not sure what Dowd wanted. Perhaps a more downbeat ending. I liked this one. There are enough films out there about musicians who end up badly. This is a small punk band of three teenage girls who make it out of nowheresville. But by the music video, they seem to have shorn all of their punk roots. I wonder how this would have been if a female like Susan Seidelman had directed this.
The film was finally released by Paramount, but they made no real effort to distribute it and it quickly made its way to the graveyard of neglected films. But in 2008 it was released on DVD and was discovered by a new generation and has become something of a cult film. I had never heard about it till last week when I saw a mention of it on Facebook. It has a very Indie vibe to it, shot on a small budget with an unknown cast - unknown at that time. Two of the girls in the band went on to big careers - Diane Lane who was fifteen when the film was shot and Laura Dern who was thirteen at the time. The main male actor was Ray Winstone who has had a lengthy career as a tough guy. Some of the musicians in the other band - The Looters - were legit punk rockers - Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols and Paul Simonon from the Clash. By 1980, the Punk scene was already beginning to lose steam - and this does nothing to glamorize it. It shows the seedy shitty side of bus touring through small towns and venues that all look the same. And it always seems to be raining. There is nothing about this lifestyle that is appealing, but they do it for the music and for the hope that it will take them somewhere eventually. Out of this crap with the lousy agents and managers looking for a fast buck.
Diane Lane - very recognizable at fifteen - plays Corinne Burns - Third Degree Burns as she tells one interviewer - has attitude - gobs of it - punk fuck you attitude with a fast smartass response to everything. She lives in some no future small town in Pennsylvania with her sister (Marin Kanter) after their mother has died of cancer. What did she die of, she is asked. Breathing. She, her sister and another friend (Laura Dern) form the Fabulous Stains - Corinne is the lead singer and the focal point of the film. She is interviewed on local TV and creates a small splash with her teen rebellion attitude - it gives her enough publicity for a tour to add her to the players. They are pretty awful, and the men make fun of their music and their punk cut haircuts, see-through outfits, her over-sized beret and red eye-shadow - but her songs of brittle female independence gain a following among young females and they begin imitating her hair and clothes look. The film wanders about too much and the pacing is practically non-existent - but it has a true feeling to it - and not to sound like a creepy old man, but Lane is magnetic on and off the stage.