Punk Rock (1977)

Originally titled Teenage Runaways and released as a pornographic film, Punk Rock is the R-rated version of an interesting sleazefest. Despite production values and most performances being on the level of a typical porno, Carter Stevens received good critical reception for his original film and decided a re-cut for a wider audience could work. The hardcore scenes are swapped out for performances by now-forgotten bands at Max’s Kansas City - The Squirrels, The Spicy Bits and The Fast. Ignoring the presence of tits and prostitutes, I think it’s fair to say that these performances are the main appeal for most modern watchers, providing a dimly-lit insight into the early days of punk. The effort to cut around sex scenes is choppy and leads to a few instances of confusion, but it doesn’t really detract much given that the plot isn’t too sharp in the first place.

The film follows Wade Nichols doing his best 1940s detective impression, monologuing over run-down city scenes about the missing girl that he’s been sent to find. Jenny, played by Susaye London, has been sucked into a hole of drugs and prostitution, and her rich father hires Nichols to find her. For something that was apparently shot in three days, it does a surprisingly good job of creating a sense of dirty mystery and some distinctive characters. Elda Gentile, lead singer of the Stilettos, stands out in her role as a whip-wielding pimp, and her band’s performances are probably the best in the film. The Stilettos originally featured Debbie Harry and Chris Stein prior to their success with Blondie, and Harry was the original first-choice actress for Elda’s character. It’s extremely unsurprising that she didn’t take it up, but there’s a universe where she did, which is somewhat insane to think about.

Although the story isn’t the strongest thing in the world, it allows for a great document of 70s NYC grime. Nichols wanders through massage parlours and rock bars, confronting unsavoury characters of your typical varieties, until he pushes a little too far and ends up over his head. The grottiness of the location is distinct, and the film’s position as fringe media allows it to showcase everything without any sense of chasteness. Naked women dance around Elda and the Stilettos, Nichols lies in bed with the girl he’s supposed to be saving, and an evil underworld refuses to let its victims leave. Addiction, dealing and forced prostitution are rampant, and the landscape is persistently filthy and violent.

Punk Rock posits a world where rock bands are at the forefront of sex trafficking, luring in teenage girls obsessed with their stars, and then pimping them out. Punk was new and threatening upon the film’s release, so the narrative takes this threat to the extreme, with its protagonist lamenting the state of his ears throughout. Nichols’ character hates the music that he encounters, and besides a single prostitute none of the scenesters are friendly. Jenny, as an innocent rich girl, has been whisked away by sleaze, and characters who claim to have had genuine friendship with her are assumed to be liars by default. The backing of this new, nasty music gives a unique edge to the oft-repeated plot of a naive girl lured into sex work, and gives the setting a firmer sense of life and danger. The narrative being so familiar does mean that the film falls into similar trappings that every other iteration of the story does, and no-one could call it nuanced, but that’s not the interesting part. Punk itself is dumb and loud and unattractive, and so is the film. Punk also finds itself dominated by men, and unsurprisingly the film also doesn’t do much to humanise its female characters. Nichols appears pleasantly fruity beneath the masculine cop act, but the film still obviously focuses only on male perspectives.

I won’t spoil it, but the ending is pretty stupid. Robert Kerman appears as a dodgy investigator, and an attempt at a dramatic resolution with his long final monologue is ruined by the absurdity of how abrupt it is. The noir detective angle is played pretty straightforwardly, but seeing it filtered through punk and pornography makes for a more unique experience. Our protagonist has to wade deep into grime, and the grime is ever-present, with the soundtrack and sex adding more dirty layers. Punk Rock mostly serves as a good document of the era, forgettable no-names included, and is probably most valuable because of that. The god-awful 2013 CBGB film didn’t feature The Fast throwing cheerios around on-stage, but a porno from the 70s does, and I’d take a hundred shitty video rips of genuinely crap films over a tired biopic any day. That’s what punk’s about, I guess.