In the ’80s The Knack hit it big . . . and the record companies went looking for the next “My Sharona” . . . and signed the likes of The Plimsouls (“A Million Miles Away”), Translator (“Everywhere That I’m Not”), and Wire Train (“A Chamber of Hellos”). Later on, along came some kid named Kurt Cobain . . . and the record companies searched for instant chart nirvana in the grooves of Bush, Pearl Jam, and Silverchair.

And in between, there was a little ‘ol band out of Ireland called U2. And the record companies gave us the likes of Big Country (remember their guitars “sounded” like bag pipes) from Scotland, along with Ėire Isle’s An Emotional Fish and Hothouse Flowers (both oh, so “Bono”), and Silent Running (imagine Brian Adams writing songs for Bad Company fronted by Bono). But the ones that looked and sounded the most like U2 was a band out of Wales known as The Alarm. Their label, IRS Records (home to another set of U2 hopefuls out of Athens, Georgia, R.E.M), even went as far as booking the Welsh lads on U2’s 1983 groundbreaking “War Tour.” The Irish assist gave the Welsh rockers international success with the songs “The Stand,” “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?,” “68 Guns,” and “Strength.”

But by the advent of the ’90s — with that kid out of the Pacific Northwest changing the musical landscape — The Alarm was finished. And the record companies wouldn’t give lead vocalist Mike Peters’s new band The Poets Of Justice or his solo endeavors the time of day. He was “too old” and his music was “out of style,” they told him.

So Peters pulled a Milli Vanilli, so to speak.

After writing a new song, “45 RPM,” he recruited an unknown band by the name of the Wayriders to lipsync the song’s promotional video — under the name the Poppy Fields. And the scam worked: the song hit the British Top 30 in 2004 and became the Alarm’s first significant hit in 20 years.

In the frames of this fun, low-budget film loosely based those events, Mike Peters and the Alarm are portrayed by down-on-his luck punk rocker Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels from Breaking Glass and Quadrophenia), the leader of the once glorious Weapons of Happiness. After attending a funeral for one of his old mates, Johnny runs into his old band (as well as Steve Diggle from the Buzzcocks and Peters from the Alarm in cameos) and decides to get the band back together.

. . . And the record companies couldn’t be more disinterested in the “new music” from these ‘ol sods and codgers. So Johnny hires a bunch of fresh-faced youngins to mime his music in a promotional video. The gig — well, jig — is up when the Johnny’s hired guns — the Single Shots — decide they want to be a “real band” and receive more recognition for their work. (Cue Don Kirshner and his Beatles wannabes, the Monkees. Be sure to check out our Exploring: The Movies of Don Kirshner featurette.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world: Mike Peters gave it all up in a Radio 1 interview during a 2004 chart countdown show — and the story was picked up by the international press. After the U.K. and European success of the film and its accompanying soundtrack in 2012, Mike Peters and the Alarm embarked on The Vinyl Tour 2013 to packed venues.

. . . And Peters and the Alarm are still recording. They released their most recent album, Sigma, and its hit single, “Brighter Than the Sun,” in 2019. Ironically, in 2021, the band released the effort, War. You can learn more about that album in this piece by the Los Angeles Daily News.

Yeah, Peters made his point: you’re never too old to rock ‘n’ roll. Amen!

As for director Sara Sugarman — who got her start as an actress in Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy (1986) and a variety of British television series — she’s been named as the new director of the production beleaguered Midas Man (2023), concerned with the relationship between the Beatles and Brian Epstein. We discuss that film — and thirty-three more — as part of our three-part series regarding speculative biographical flicks on the Beatles, the films using the legend of the “Fab Four” as plot fodder, and the historical sidebars to their careers — both as a band and solo artists.

You can stream Vinyl as a free with ads on TubiTv. If you’d prefer an ad-free experience, you can stream it on You Tube Movies.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Imagine a film so plagued with legal and productions issues that even the pseudonymised Alan Smithee doesn’t want to take a credit—and it took almost 30 years before the film screened to a mass audience.

Such a film is Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel . . . yes, we know the hotel’s sign uses an ampersand, while film title uses the contraction . . . that’s just one of this film’s many problems.

And those problems began in the fall of October 1982 in Richmond, Virginia, at the once opulent Jefferson Hotel, a location where French director Louis Malle previously completed his 1981 independent comedy-drama My Dinner with Andre (which Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave “two thumbs up”). By the time Hollywood came a-callin’ in Richmond for its next film, the hotel fell into urban decay and became the home of transients.

But no one ever got a chance to give a thumb—up or down (but probably a lot of middle fingers)—for Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel. Well, they did . . . 27 years after the fact, in 2010. But more on that later. . . .

Executive Producers Howard and Francine Schuster, along with producers Peter Rodis and William Gilmore (who saw the film as a “tax-shelter” movie), and Stiff Records’ signee Rachel Sweet and her father/manager (who envisioned the film as her transition from music into film) rose about a $4 million for the project. None had produced a film prior—or since. And speaking of “taxes”: the reason Richmond was chosen over the also-scouted locations of Atlanta and Orlando was Virginia’s generous “tax incentive/tax break” program for film and television productions.

The film’s genesis was rooted in the 3-D craze sweeping cinemas in the early ‘80s with the likes of Amityville 3-D, Comin’ at Ya!, Jaws 3-D, and Friday the 13th 3-D,” and Treasure of the Four Crowns cleaning up at the box office. The Schusters, along with cinematographer and stereoscopic film expert John Rupkolvis, were behind the development of a new type of inexpensive 3-D filmmaking called Arrivision—and the Schusters wanted to make their own movie to showcase the new 3-D technology.

The director the Schusters chose for their “3-D rock ‘n’ roll teen horror musical”—a “director” who never directed a film before—was film composer and arranger Richard Baskin (Nashville, Welcome to L.A., Honeysuckle Rose), a Baskin-Robbins ice cream scion, Barbara Streisand’s then live-in boyfriend, and brother to Saturday Night Live writer Edie Baskin. Richard Baskin’s street cred as a songwriter and composer for films is what got him the job on this planned musical—actually a long-form MTV-style rock video. The set director, just starting out in the feature film business, was noted music video director Mary Lambert (the Go-Go’s, Madonna, Motley Crue, Janet Jackson), who became a film director in her own right (1989’s Stephen King’s Pet Cemetery). Also on the set as the film’s music consultant was Seth Justman, the longtime keyboardist and songwriter for the J.Geils Band.

Okay, so all of these people have skills. So far, so good. . . .

The script, described as “unfinished and unfocused” and “unyielding” over the years by those involved in the production, centered on the career of the Third Dimension, a young n’ sassy, new-wave rock trio fronted by Lisa, portrayed by Akron, Ohio, born and U.K.-transplanted singer Rachel Sweet, who issued European hit singles on the Stiff Records label (home to Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe). The faux band also featured Johnny, a leather-jacket clad guitar player portrayed by Judd Nelson in his feature film debut (two years away from his back-to-back breakthrough roles in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire), and Rick, a scarf-clad bassist portrayed by the big screen-debuting Matthew Penn, he the son of director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, Alice’s Restaurant, Little Big Man). (These days, Matt is a prolific TV series director with over one hundred fifty credits.)

The cast was rounded out by older, fading actors brought in as fading classic ’50s rockers: comedian Dick Shawn (It’s a Mad, Mad World, The Producers), now ubiquitous character actor Joe Grifasi (Brewster’s Millions, Honky Tonk Freeway), and Broadway singer-actress Donna McKechnie (TV’s Dark Shadows), who replaced Stella Stevens (The Poseidon Adventure). Also starring was Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons (himself a Chesapeake, Virginia native) as a motorcycle-riding disc jockey, along with MTV VJ Colin Quinn as a fast-pattering DJ.

The plot—such as it is—is your typical good vs. evil story centered around a rock ‘n’ roll battle of the bands contest held in the old, sinister “Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel.” Sweet’s new wave-inspired Third Dimension are, of course, the good guys; the washed-up ’50s rock-crooning the Weevils, fronted by Shawn and backed by the cougaresque McKenchnie and the piano-playing Grifasi, are determined to win the contest at any cost.

As you’ll can see from the two trailers and promotional video we’ve linked-up below (at the end of the review): everything is way out there—and not making a whole lot of sense, as continuity and narrative are out the window.

It seems the sinister, evil classic ’50s rockers, the Weevils (escaping from Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise), have perfected the skills of hypnotism, have control of three white-clad tempting Fates to lure men to their sexual demise (always on the make for Nelson and Penn), and have access to a time machine—which comes in handy when you need an inebriated Beethoven and stoned Jimi Hendrix to show up for few laughs; Frankenstein lumbers around the halls amid zombies; there’s a dancing chorus of haunted pants; an old, snoring corspe takes a nap in front of a television; there’s a wheel-chair bound, rat-faced talent agent; Shawn’s Weevil King of Evil sashays around in wares typical of King Ludwig II of Bavaria; Joe Grifasi cops n’ mocs Elton John’s wardrobe and stage antics. There’s sad trombone “Wah-Wah-Wah” fanfare-styled humor that would give T.L.P Swicegood (The Undertaker and his Pals) pause. There’s a ten-minute, song-and-dance car crusin’ number with Nelson and Penn shredding guitars as Sweet sings. There’s homages to Devo paired with Shawn crooning ’50s rockabilly tunes. Oh, and everyone is shoving things into the camera to play up the the “3-D” effects.

So, yes . . . the mise-en-scène kinetics of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is definitely a touchstone in the rock ‘n’ roll tomfoolery, as Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel wears its hopes as another Rock ‘n’ Roll High School on its sleeves. The more discerning rock flick connoisseurs will reference Allan Arkush’s Get Crazy (1983; his gonzo tribute to the closing of the Lower East Side New York rock club, the Fillmore East), Menahem Golan’s crazed, futurist rock tale, The Apple (1980), and the Weinstein’s Miramax debut release, the obscure Playing for Keeps (1983; which also deals with the shenanigans at a “rock ‘n’ roll” hotel). Then there’s the VHS aficionados who will go deeper with It’s a Complex World (1991), a nutty tribute (Elvis and Captain Lou Albano show up) to Providence, Rhode Island’s late rock club, Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel.

No way this is going to work. . . .

Almost immediately, Baskin, it’s been said, found himself in way over his head—and all hell broke loose over the script, shooting schedule, and budgets one week into shooting. And the production shut down for a week. Then Seth Justman—who was also new to feature film directing—took the director’s chair based on his heavily-rotated MTV videos for J.Geils’ “Love Stinks” and “Centerfold,” along with “Shake it Up” by the Cars. Of course, by this point, the screenplay, written by Russ Dvonch of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School fame (and worked in various capacities on Roger Corman’s Deathsport and Avalanche), was rewritten by an unknown writer-friend of Justman’s, Janice Shaprio (with no other credits to her name since).

Needless to say, the new director and script doctoring didn’t help.

The film disintegrated in a flurry of lawsuits, speculations and accusations. There were claims the original negatives were lost or stolen, lost in a lab accident, or it was because the film lab processing the negative went bankrupt. The ensuing lawsuits quickly bankrupted the Schusters—and they fled to Australia. Other rumors claim the film was cut up by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and spliced into Playing for Keeps (1986), their debut feature for Miramax Studios—which was another Matthew Penn-starring film (thus assuring some sense of continuity) that also served as the leading lady debut of Marisa Tomei. (The practice of cutting a failed, unfinished film into another also occurred with the Runaways feature film, We’re All Crazy Now, which ended up in the film duBeat-e-o.) And why was that assumed? Because the Weinstein’s film also centered on a trio of New York high schoolers who decide to turn an old, grand mansion into a “Rock n’ Roll Hotel” (a claim which has been reportedly disproven, at least according to the materials-research I’ve read).

In truth: The Sweet and Nelson-starring film finally appeared in a March 1983 issue of Variety—released under the auspices of another set of filmmaking relations: Menahem Golan (who just directed an equally wacked out rock flick, The Apple) and his cousin, Yoram Globus, for their Cannon Pictures. The press release stated they were set to debut the film at the Movie Lab on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles on March 9 and 10 at 3 p.m; and that it would have a New York showing at the Waverley Theater on Sixth Street during the weekend of March 11 and 12.

But alas, the showing weren’t a serious attempt to distribute the film, but simply to fulfill the terms of the project’s “tax shelter” agreement to investors that that film must appear in a major city over the course of a weekend (see Tom Sizemore’s Zyzzyx Road and Christian Slater’s Playback for examples; Roger Corman’s abortive 1994 version of The Fantastic Four also applies). At that point, Rachel Sweet and her father shanghaied the film and claimed they “finished it,” shooting new footage and shifting more of the film’s focus on Rachel—and that the film aired on HBO in the mid-eighties (a claim which the programmers of HBO deny).

Then, in February 2010, Craig Hodgetts, one of the set designers on the film working under Mary Lambert, discovered a raw VHS tape labeled “‘Rock and Roll Hotel,’ 83 min., 1986,” in a box of production sketches and photo stills from the film in the archives room of his architectural firm in Culver City, California. And that copy does, in fact, carry a “Richard Sweet Productions” title card. So, it seems, the Sweet’s claims that they finished the film and that it aired on HBO are true. And this is the version that has no director credit—not even Alan Smithee.

So what happened to the original 35mm “3-D Wondervision” version showing off all that great 3-D camera work? What happened to the print shown in Los Angeles and New York in 1983? Where’s the 1986 version?

Today, all that exists is the digitized, low-tech 2-D direct-from-VHS copy that occasional plays around the Richmond area in an art house-drafthouse environment and the occasional U.S film festival—the one found in a box in Hodgetts’s closet.

TRAILERS ‘n’ CLIPS: Yes, we have ’em! But you know those ‘ol HTML bugs and video sharing sites. Code breaks and “unofficial” uploads by fans — and not reissue shingles — are sometimes deleted. So, you can link-out to watch this trailer and promotional video on You Tube and another trailer on Vimeo.

MANY THANKS: To Dale Brumfield of Style Weekly Magazine, Cinedelphia Film Festival (as of 2021, the site is currently dead/festival no longer exists), and James River Film Journal for their efforts in preserving the memory of this truly lost rock ‘n’ roll film that assisted in preparing this review for our first “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week” at B&S About Movies.

MORE THANKS, 2022: Just when you think your review-writing was for naught, only to be lost somewhere, forgotten on a file server . . . someone discovers it, shares it on social media, and the subsequent readers reach out to express their enjoyment of the piece. So, thanks to those half-dozen or so that FB’d me (including two who worked on the film!) with their gratitude. Yeah, it is fun to reminisce with these films and chat them up with the fans and the crew. Your vibes keep me bangin’ at the keys! Turns out it is not as fruitless as it sometimes feels (my “Exploring 50 Grunge Films” piece received the same, positive social media responses).

MORE MOVIE LINKS: Oh, and since Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel qualifies as a Box Office Failure—hey, everyone gave it their best, for sure—be sure to check out out recent, week long February tribute week to “Box Office Failures.” Do you need more faux rock band flicks? Sure you do! Then check out our “Ten Bands Made Up for Movies (and a whole lot more)” featurette.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

You’re Penelope Spheeris and you amazed the disenfranchised punk and metal hoards with your debut feature film: 1981’s epic punkumentary The Decline of Western Civilization. (Yes, we did DoWC II and DoWC III). Yeah, we know her most popular film—and the highest-grossing film of her career—is the rock-centric (and very cool) Wayne’s World. But that’s for the mainstream Queen and Alice Cooper fans. (Okay, so for two Halloweens I dressed up as Wayne: once recruiting my blonde sister, then my blonde girlfriend, as Garth.)

For guys like me and Sam (he bullied for wearing a Samhain t-shirt to school; me, The Clash), this dark tale of two Los Angeles brothers escaping their alcoholic mother and a runaway escaping her pedophile father that come find solace in the surrogate family formed by a band of punk-rock squatters, who end up battling the local rednecks for supremacy of an abandoned housing tract, is Penelope’s best known film.

. . . And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, so says the Scottish proverb. And if VHS-repeat viewings (today, it’s DVDs and online streams) were dollars, Suburbia would be Penelope Spheeris’s highest-grossing film—so goes the B&S About Movies analog edict. That’s right, Wayne. Don’t let the door on Stan Mikita’s Donuts hit you in the arse on the way out . . . and party on.

The formula that makes Suburbia work is the same formula that makes Jonathan Kaplan’s juvenile delinquency rock fest Over the Edge (1979) work: Instead of casting the ubiquitous 30-year-actors as “teenagers” that is typical of a major studio, teen-centric flick (outside of two newbie-trained actors, OTE’s teen cast were first timers), Spheeris not only cast real teenagers, she cast the film with non-professional street kids and punk rock musicians to play all of the roles. One of those punks (the pet rat-loving and stray doberman-training Razzle) was Flea, who would later star in Spheeris’s punk-inspired western, Dudes (1987); he soon surpass the musical careers of D.I, T.S.O.L, the Vandals (all who perform and act in the film) as the bassist of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. (D.I performs “Richard Hung Himself,” T.S.O.L “Wash Away” and “Darker My Love,” and The Vandals “The Legend of Pat Brown.” The Vandals would also appear in Dudes to perform “Urban Struggle.”)

It’s that neophyte casting that feeds the cinéma vérité narrative style of Suburbia and lends to natural actions and authentic dialog that, while scripted and staged, ranks Suburbia alongside Adam Small’s punkumentary Another State of Mind (1984) as one of the greatest punk films—and teenagers-in-revolt (i.e., juvenile delinquency flicks)—ever made. Yeah, we watched Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptations of S.E Hinton’s beloved early ’70s young adult novels The Outsiders and Rumblefish—both released the same year as Suburbia—but while competently crafted and acted, neither rings with the true sounds of celluloid liberty.

Courtesy of Shout Factory reissuing Suburbia as part of their Roger Corman Cult Classics DVD series in 2010, you can’t not find a copy. In fact, two of my local county library branches carry it. That’s more than I can say for the old Vestron Video VHS: I was a member of six video stores (three mom n’ pops, three chains) and only two carried it. And the two stores that did, thanks to New World Pictures’ dopey post-apoc artwork, they filed it in the sci-fi section—right next to copies of duBeat-e-o. Thankfully, the subsequent DVD and soundtrack CD reissues retained the original artwork of the theatrical one-sheet and Engima Records’ soundtrack LP (images via IMDb/Discogs).

You can stream that Shout Factory version for free on TubiTV, which also carries Spheeris’s follow ups to Suburbia: 1985’s The Boys Next Door (Tubi), itself a juvenile delinquency classic (that also ranks alongside 1979’s Over the Edge), and 1987’s Dudes (Tubi) . But if you’d rather ditch the ads, there’s a rip of Suburbia on You Tube. You can also listen to the soundtrack in its entirety on You Tube as you read the liner notes over on Discogs.

Music trivia flotsam and jetsam: Alex Gibson led L.A.’s BPeople for several years in the late ‘70s; the quartet started out as the Little Cripples (never recorded) with bassist Paul B. Cutler. When BPeople (a somber Joy Division-styled quartet with synths and saxophone) disbanded as result of lead singer Michael Gira relocating to New York to form the Swans (doing shows alongside Sonic Youth (Desolation Center), Gibson embarked on a solo career; Paul B. Cutler formed 45 Grave with Don Bolles of the Germs.

We all came to know 45 Grave with their death-punk classic “Party Time” from their debut album Sleep in Safety (1983; Enigma) via its inclusion on another punk flick classic, Return of the Living Dead. And we know the Germs courtesy of their appearance in The Decline of Western Civilization, which featured songs from their Joan Jett-produced debut, GI (1979; Slash).

The Vandals and D.I (an outgrowth of the Adolescents) each continued recording into the mid-2000. As The Vandals contributed songs to several more soundtracks (Glory Daze), drummer-bassist Joe Escalante made his leading man debut in the direct-to-video punk flick, That Darn Punk (1996).

T.S.O.L, through a plethora of roster upheavals and style changes (hard core, metal, and back again), continue to record. They also performed “Hit and Run” in another L.A. punk flick, The Runnin’ Kind (1989), as well as provide songs to The Return of the Living Dead and Dangerously Close. They also provided “Flowers by the Door” and “Hear Me Cry” to Hear Me Cry, an ’80s installment of the CBS Schoolbreak Special (yeah, we found it on You Tube).

Gibson parlayed his scoring work on Suburbia into a career as a music editor, most notably for the resume of Christopher Nolan, which culminated with his winning an Academy Award in 2018 for sound editing on the film for Nolan’s Dunkirk.

And good ol’ Roger Corman, never one never one to waste a set, costume, or frame of footage (Battle Beyond the Stars into Galaxy of Terror into Space Raiders; Eat My Dust recycled into Grand Theft Auto), used the concert sequences from Suburbia in White Star (1983), a Dennis Hopper-starring German rock flick that New World repurposed for the U.S. VHS market under the lame title, Let it Rock.

Update, May 2023: Our thanks to the gang at Film Scene for pull-quoting our review as part of their promotional materials for their May 10th showing of Suburbia as part of their Late Shift at the Grindhouse Film Series. It happens every Wednesday at Film Scene at the Chauncey in Downtown Iowa City.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

“Thanks for killing my mom.”
“Hey, no problem.”
— Kitty Carryall and Patch Kelly

What do you get when you shoot a film for less than $300 on Super-8 film with a bunch of your friends from the L.A. punk scene (Dez Cadena of Black Flag and DC 3, Jeff and Steve McDonald of Red Kross, Vicki Peterson of the Bangles)? You get Dave Markey’s amateurish — but much loved — campy mirco-classic about the rise and fall of punk rock band.

When the mothers of lead singer and guitarist Kitty Carryall (know your Brady Bunch trivia!; portrayed by screenwriter Jennifer Schwartz), bassist Bunny Tremelo (Hilary Rubens), and drummer Patch Kelly (Janet Housden; later became a legal consultant on films) decide that punk rock isn’t proper for young ladies, the trio runs away to fulfill their rock ‘n’ roll dreams.

Out on the (comical) mean streets of Los Angeles, the Lovedolls are forced to fend for themselves against gangs (Kurt Schellenbach of the Nip Drivers) and rival bands. Also working against them is their sleazy manager Johnny Tremaine (Steve McDonald of Redd Kross) who uses them for sex and his own personal gain, and a rival girl gang, the She Devils (Annette Zilinskas, then of the Bangles and later with Blood on the Saddle; became a film animator) who work at sabotaging the Lovedolls. The girls finally decide they had enough and decide to strike back at those who wronged them.

Director Dave Markey has made this available as a free stream on his official You Tube channel, along with the director’s cut of the sequel Lovedolls Superstar, also on his You Tube channel. You can enjoy a playlist re-creation of the soundtrack to Desperate Teenage Lovedolls on You Tube and an upload of the soundtrack to Lovedoll Superstar on You Tube. Both the DVD and CD of Desperate Teenage Lovedolls are readily available in the online marketplace, as well as used copies of the ’80s-issued VHS and LP versions. (Thank the analog gods for comic books stores renting odd-ball VHS titles, and record stores carrying used vinyl . . . why did I sell the album? Ugh! Oh, because of bought it for $10 and sold it for $80 because the car needed gas.)

You also also can watch Markey’s punkumentary, 1994: The Year Punk Broke — starring Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, and Dinosaur, Jr. — on Daily Motion and (as a 15-part upload) on You Tube.

You need more grunge flicks? Be sure to check out our “Exploring: 50 Gen-X Grunge Films of the Alt-Rock ‘90s” featurette chronicling a wealth of films from the era.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.