WTF?! - Savage Streets (1984)

WTF?! - Savage Streets (1984)

“They raped her sister... killed her best friend. Now she must seek revenge!”

Next up in WTF Cinema magnificence is the 1984 Linda Blair vigilante extraordinaire film, “Savage Streets.” Released on October 5, 1984, New York Magazine described the film as “All about the seedy violence of the Hollywood Boulevard underworld.” When the evil gang “The Scars” push their weight around, just a little too much (and that’s putting it nicely) the leader of “The Satins” Brenda (Linda Blair) saddles up with her hottest zip-up jump suit and crossbow, going practically Ape-Shit on every gang member who does her wrong. You see, Brenda’s deaf-mute baby sister Heather (Linnea Quigley) gets gang-raped by “The Scars” while Brenda is settling a score with another dame in the girls' shower at The High School. 

Let’s start by saying that “Savage Streets” won’t be everyone’s cup of punk-turned-champion tea. However, forty years later, this film still holds its own. There are some incredibly eye-opening 80s fashions and some great cinematography of Hollywood and Los Angeles before any gentrification took place. “Savage Streets” is CO-written and directed by Danny Steinmann, a former porn director.

Although largely panned when first released, “Savage Streets” has grown a huge cult following. This film wasn’t produced to make any kind of statement, just to make money and entertain. Although it has some rough scenes in it to watch, it’s an honest film. The film makers and actors believe in it. You can tell by how hard they’re trying. 

“Savage Streets” features an incredible array of 80s rock music, mostly performed by Australia’s acclaimed artist John Farnham. It’s rumored that the incredible soundtrack for the film wasn’t released due to a marketing “pullback.” Copies of the LP you may find today would be Demo Copies. In 2005 the independent label Turbo Productions did release and abbreviated version of the film’s soundtrack, but that has come and gone. Fans of “Animal House” will recognize actor John Vernon (Dean Wormer) as Principal Underwood. Cinema-files with a real keen eye will recognize “Showgirls’” Gina Gershon as a glorified extra in the film. 

WTF moments in “Savage Streets” include; gang leader Jake’s razor blade earring; The way the male members bond by kissing each other on the lips; Linda Blair roughing up not one, but two chicks: one in class, ripping off her top: and the other in an all-nude shower fight that makes “Orange Is The New Black” look like the pillow fight from the film “Annie.”; the preparation and execution of a skin tight jump suit, accompanied by a loaded crossbow, which Blair has no problem accessing to revenge the gang; and the untimely demise of pregnant character Francine in the hands of “The Scars” (complete with wedding gown and all).

What defies detailed description is a very violent, uncomfortable and prolonged rape scene with Heather and the gang. It’s the toughest part of the film to watch and I can only assume that Steinmann took it to that extent because: (a) he was going for shock value and (b) his experience in adult films allowed him a much more realistic simulation ... too real. Many years later actress Linnea Quigley (Heather) told author Louis Paul (“Tales from the Cult Film Trenches,”) “That was a film that I did with Linda Blair, who was great to work with. However, my scenes involved being raped. My character was not allowed to have any lines. It was a very hard film to make.”  In her book “Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film,” Carol J. Clover writes, “...if Farrah Fawcett of Extremities stands at the more credible end of the continuum, Linda Blair in Savage Streets stands at the other.”  

“Savage Streets” which first picked up an X rating, then was “downgraded” to an R, was one of a slew of “lone tough girl” films to be released about that time in the 80s. Scarred (1983) and the start of the “Angel” series (1984) to name a few. Although “Savage Streets” has been classified as a girl gang film, the Satins’ Debra (Blair) does a majority of the fighting. After all, a girl can only take so much crap. 

Independent CODE RED announced a limited Blu-ray release (only 1000 copies issued) for April of this year, for its fortieth anniversary. Sadly, that has not surfaced. I contacted CODE RED, and I am awaiting their reply. I recommend renting or buying the 2disc DVD box set, if anything else. You should see this film strictly as a study in that this film got made. A film like this couldn’t be and wouldn’t be produced by the studios, today. It just wouldn’t exist. It has some great one-liners and a plot-line that will have you rooting for Blair by the end. 

“Savage Streets” starring; Linda Blair, Linnea Quigley, Johnny Venocur, Sal Landi, Scott Mayer and Debra Blee. Directed by Danny Steinmann. (1984) 93 minutes. 

WTF?! - So Fine (1981)

WTF?! - So Fine (1981)

When I was a kid, just about the age of 13 or so I remember playing in my parent’s attic and coming across a dresser drawer with buttons in it. They were all shapes and sizes. Not buttons like you’d sew on a shirt, no; but they were badges with different fun sayings on them. I’d giggle at the one that said, “I don’t mind if you smoke, as long as you don’t mind if I fart,” and “Linda Lovelace for President.” As I flipped through these funny medallions I found one that said “So Fine” with the picture of a woman’s rump slipped into jeans with her fanny cheeks showing trough clear plastic windows. I marveled at it. I thought, so weird... but funny!

I later came to find out that it was a promotional item for a film that had come out that year called, “So Fine” from Warner Brothers. “So Fine" stars Ryan O’Neal and comic vet Jack Warden. With the onset of Philadelphia area’s Prism Cable TV channel, I finally got to see the film when it first came on TV. Not remembering much of the film but remembering it was a little silly, I came across the film on 16mm as bid item on EBAY; but alas, lost the bid to someone in Canada (Damn Canadians!). Finally, I’m thrilled to say that Warner Archives does this one proud, and now makes it available on DVD.

Our story takes place in the hallowed halls of a New England university where our stuffy hero, Bobby Fine (Ryan O’Neal) teaches literature. His father Jack (Jack Warden) runs a failing 7th Avenue dress factory and is way-into debt with a monster of a mobster loan shark, played by James Bond villain extraordinary Richard Kiel. After getting wrapped up in a resolution deal with the loan shark, Bobby dives into a rendezvous with the mobster’s wife (Mariangela Melato of Swept Away). While escaping from being caught in bed with the doll, Bobby rips his jeans open in the butt, accidentally creating a new fashion craze called “So Fine Jeans.” 

“So Fine” is the directing debut for screenwriter and New york native Andrew Bergman. Bergman rose to acclaim by co-penning such hilarities as “Blazing Saddles” and “The In-Laws.” In a wonderful interview with author Joel Engel, “Screenwriters on Screenwriting,” Bergman recounts his feelings on the film:

AB: “I’m still sort of an academic... I think that’s why ‘So Fine’ was about academia; it was a metaphor for the movie business. Ryan O’Neal going into the dress business was really me going into the movie business.”

JE: “Ryan O’Neal seems to me to have been interesting casting.”

AB: “He’s a great physical comedian. First of all, Warner Brothers wasn’t going to let me do the picture unless we had a major star in it. Ryan was it. I mean, he’s not the logical person to play an English professor who’s Jewish. But I really wanted to make the picture, so I said, ‘Screw it.’ Ryan is a great physical comedian--I think one of the great wasted talents. He’s extraordinarily funny.”

Melato and Keil cut the Disco rug

When I bought “So Fine” I thought for sure that I’d be reliving how bad the film was, and only enjoying it for its 80s camp value. The funny thing is, I loved it! Now an adult who’s seen much more of the world, and experienced many more slapstick comedies; 

I have to say, I feel that “So Fine” actually delivers “the funny” way more than originally thought. O’Neal is hands down charming in the role. His role as Bobby is quite reminiscent of his screwball antics with Barbra Streisand in “What’s Up, Doc?” Jack Warden’s one liners had me gaffaing out loud and splitting my stitches of the comic blue jeans in my head. I also took delight in some quick, but contributive cameos; Fred Gwynne (aka Herman Munster) as the university’s Department Chairman; Asian character actor James Hong (Blade Runner, Kung Fu Panda); and most-notably, singer comedienne Judith Cohen, who was discovered on the classic sit-com “Good Times” as a sad-sack performer singing “Send In The Clowns.” 

Sadly, this Clothing Industry comedy didn’t do well and was a farcical flop at the box office. David Denby of New York Magazine called the film “crass and depressingly unfunny”; but liked Malato comparing her to Streisand, only “quieter, prettier, and funnier.” Ryan O’Neal spoke highly of Melato in his memoir “Both Of Us: My Life with Farrah," but thought it was a weak debut for Bergman. In his 40s when “So Fine” was released, O’Neal’s most recent success, up to that point, was with Streisand in “The Main Event” just a few years earlier. “So Fine” would appear to be a slump for him, until “Irreconcilable Differences” came out in 1984. 

Mariangela Melato and Ryan O'Neal 

Despite other bad reviews, Janet Maslin of “The New York Times” liked the hometown film, writing “Mr. Bergman's direction is for the most part skillful and confident. 'So Fine' is a little shapeless overall, especially after it sends Bobby back to his college once the jeans have made jean history. But its comic episodes are nicely controlled, and the movie has a consistent zany style. An early college sequence, with Fred Gwynne offering a wittily grotesque caricature of a department chairman and David Rounds as an ambitious underling, is perfectly in keeping with the gangster and garment episodes that come later.”

“So Fine” has a silly charm to it, but is possible the film didn't do well because it was poking fun at women in a unintentionally misogynistic manner. (I mean, it was the 80s) That being said, “So Fine” is a great film to watch because it launches the 80s as a decade, having fun and poking light at the superficial clothing design industry. The film played for a few years on cable and broadcast TV but pretty much disappeared in the 90s until now. The DVD offering from Warner Archives looks great and is presented in its original widescreen format.

Bergman would not regain popularity as a director until “The Freshman” about a decade later. Bergman, finishing his thoughts on “So Fine”: 

“The Movie was a bomb, but I must say that, to this day, some of the funniest things I’ve ever done were in that movie. Jack Warden’s performance was hysterical. The opera sequence. The whole ongoing thing between Warden and the buyers. For sheer, piss-in-the-pants funny, the movie has some of the best dialogue I’ve ever written.”

So Fine (1981)  
DVD 
$14.95

Warner Archives