Affectionate, thorough account of the making of the cult classic. It had, as is generally well known, quite a turbulent birth, evolving from the "three girls" template at New World, then becoming a disco musical, before emerging as a rock musical, through the passion of Alan Arkush who really knocked it out of the park. It combined his irreverence towards authority and love of rock and old movies (like If, Marx Brothers and Hard Days Night).
The film was blessed with luck in many ways - the script got progressively better, it seems, as opposed to worse; Arkush was the perfect director; PJ Soles the perfect star (though it's her and Dey Young who are the heart and soul of the film); New World had developed an excellent stock company by this stage including Dick Miller, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov; they got the ideal band with the Ramones (apparenrlty Cheap Trick were considered... that might have worked).
Lots I didn't know - like Rosanna Arquette was up for the lead and tried to alpha Soles into not doing it ("well I'm going to get the part"), Young was last minute, the film previewed badly
I felt the writer was a little unfair to the writing of Charles Griffith (there's reference to "another Griffith stinker" - did Griffth write Deathsport?). Maybe his sccripts for this film were bad but the man is a genius. Or was.
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