Edgeplay: A Film about The Runaways (2004)

L-R: Cherie, Jackie, Joan, Lita, Sandy

The Runaways are my favourite band. I mean, Bowie's my favourite solo artist, no questions, but when it comes to a group of musicians who rocked hard, put on amazing shows and made their mark on the industry, The Runaways cannot be beat for me. Despite my classic rock upbringing and at the time budding love of the '70s, I had not heard The Runaways' music until 2010. Fans will know that this was when Floria Sigismondi's movie about the band, starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart was released. That summer, I was watching E! News (don't judge me), and was nothing short of captivated by the sudden sight of 15-year-old Fanning in a corset and stockings, singing to a crowd of screaming teens with a rock band. I had to know more. The movie The Runaways got a very limited release in the UK, but I tracked down a local cinema that was playing it for about two days, and was treated to an empty theatre!

I loved the movie, and it got me hooked on a few of the band's signature songs. But it was when I started looking into the real Runaways that I fell in love. They were five girls of no more than 17 years old when, in mid-70s LA, they were found by maniacal music producer Kim Fowley, who put them together and worked them like 'dogs' (as he so often referred to them), and made them a controversial overnight sensation. The band's run was short but fierce, and it broke barriers and paved the way for generations of female musicians to come. By 1980, they had all gone their own separate ways, to various fates. But their story is an amazing one, and in 2002, one-time bassist Vicky Blue (or Victory Tischler-Blue) had got into filmmaking, and decided to document the rise and fall of The Runaways.

Although there were a few lineup changes in the very early and late chapters of The Runaways' life, the band is mainly remembered as five key members: Joan Jett (who you may have heard of, I say sarcastically) was the engine, lead songwriter, rhythm guitarist and occasional singer; Lita Ford, who also went on to a long musical career, rocked out lead guitar; Jackie Fox, now an attorney, was on bass; the late great Sandy West worked magic on the drums; and one of the most memorable frontmen in band history took centre stage on lead vocal in the form of Cherie Currie.

All very different girls, but together they constituted a miracle formula for grimy, hardcore, teen-angst rock. Looking back at my own fifteen-year-old self, what The Runaways actually achieved is all the more phenomenal. I was lead singer and bassist in a band at fifteen, and was only asked to play bass because I stood like such an awkward moron when only singing. I would be the first to admit that I had no charisma, and no stage presence. The Runaways were each determined, for one reason or another, to make it big, and each drew major inspiration from key idols: Jett's was Suzi Quatro, Ford's was Richie Blackmore, Jackie Fox loved Gene Simmons, and Currie obsessed over Bowie (girl after my own heart). These teen girls took to the stage, time after time, and did things no other band was doing. Their signature song Cherry Bomb was often performed by Cherie in her trademark corset and stockings, and they were thanked for their efforts with such critical reviews as 'these bitches suck'.

I acknowledge that the '70s wasn't totally rainbows, sunshine, free sex and dollar-acid. It was a key time for the feminist movement, and many industry professionals were at best taken aback and at worst utterly pissed off that females, and not even adult ones at that, were trying to strut their platform boots all over the male stomping ground. So the band was bearing the brunt of a lot of criticism and outrage, but they were 16 and 17 years old, so they reacted with a massive middle finger. But as awesome as the situation sounds - being a talented sixteen-year-old with four wild contemporaries, on the road playing rock gigs - the behind-the-scenes reality was quite different, as Edgeplay shows us.

The one thing Edgeplay is sadly lacking is Joan's participation - for whatever reason, and she is known to be almost suspiciously detached nowadays from a lot of the Runaways stuff. She decided against appearing in the film, or permitting any of her material to be used. This was a major bummer, as about 80% of the band's material is credited to her. I have to admire Vickie Blue's tenacity with pressing forward with the project anyhow, and finding ways around the predicament. It has left some corners cut, with some filler music from Suzi Quatro et al, but audio and video of the band performing songs written either by other members, or other people entirely were a-OK.

Vickie Blue makes a great film here, structurally. Where Sigismondi's quote-unquote biopic was focused almost solely on Joan and Cherie (and steered off the path of truth on more than one occasion), Edgeplay is about the five (or seven, including Vickie and former band songwriter Kari Krome) people who made the band what it was, and chronicles their lives, as narrated by themselves and their parents, and their time together. It also very poignantly looks at the aftermath of The Runaways, which seemed to particularly affect Sandy. Towards the end, we see her close to tears, recounting the terrifying things she'd resorted to in recent years, practically begging the others for a reunion. It's so obvious that the band was her life source, and even twenty years after its demise, it was all she cared about,

As a documentary, Edgeplay is brilliant. Although Vicki Blue directs and asks the odd question on camera, narrative is left to the band members. There is also stock input from that fabulously wired svengali Kim Fowley, who offers his trademark eccentric eloquism (sidenote: Fowley's father Douglas was an actor - he played the exasperated director in Singin' in the Rain) in defense of the various tragedies and successes he was responsible for. And all members interviewed are wonderfully upfront, and Cherie and Sandy's parents offer their perspective as long-distance caregivers, scared for their absent daughters' wellbeing. A very rounded, and at times varied, account is built of the career of The Runaways.

All is held together with some fantastic, grainy old footage of the band, playing live shows, and riding in the backs of cars, and walking through airports, and giving press conferences. It's excellent, evocative stuff. I don't know if a version approaching complete will ever come to be. Cherie's autobiography Neon Angel, a redraft of her original book, is a vivid account of her time with the band, among other things. But to date many intriguing and disgusting perspectives have come to light. Both Kari Krome and Jackie Fox have said Kim Fowley sexually assaulted them. Cherie, after decades of describing Fowley on par with Caligula, brought her cancer-afflicted former manager into her home and cared for him in the months before his death. She and Lita, whose mutual hatred is infamous in the history of the band, have appeared together at an awards ceremony and sung each others' praises. A lot has changed over the years, but Edgeplay is a great combined telling of the story of a significant and, in my opinion, fantastic band, and should be seen by anybody whose soul is either partially or fully comprising of rock.