Are the young ladies of The Lovedolls a rock group or a street gang?
Same difference, says this underground classic from punk rock’s wilder days. It’s a rise and fall story told as a broad, campy live-action cartoon. Here, making music is dangerous, the music business is downright deadly and fame can be fatal. Rock ‘n’ roll means running away from home and getting into fights. It means dealing with the biggest creeps in the world. It means committing murder. It means playing with fire and getting burned real good. It doesn’t always mean a happy ending. It’s not for wimps.
Neither is this movie, made by a cast and crew of non-professionals on 8mm film, the cheapest format possible at the time. Pink Flamingos looks like slick stuff compared to this smudged-out, ragged mess. If director David Markey knew any competent actors or technically adept film school-types, he didn’t work with any of them here. Pretty much all he had was a home movie camera, the streets of Hollywood, some friends in the band Redd Kross and a cast who were up for saying lines like “Thanks for killing my mom.” By objective standards, this is a terrible film. You can’t even say that the script, if there even was one, saves it. It’s sloppy, defines amateurish and is a general affront to all proper sensibilities and standards.
And yet, that’s also what’s GOOD about it. This is a true punk rock movie. It applies to filmmaking the exact same methods that a young band might use to make a record. Quick and cheap and comfortable with imperfections. Even the sound is all recorded in post-production, like an overdubbed guitar part over a rhythm track. And none of this is a pose. This is how these people work. It’s all they know. They are amateurs and happy to be that. Love it or hate it, I think this film is exactly what Markey wanted to make.
Favorite detail: When the girls steal an acoustic guitar from a street busker in folkie drag in the middle of playing “I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles. When they use the guitar to become street musicians themselves, what cover song do they play? “Strutter” by Kiss! I’d give ’em a dollar.