Times Square colour lobby cards

Nicky and Pammy’s blood oath: NYC, pre-HIV

In my previous post, I alluded — again! — to one of the many sites of loss in Times Square. Pamela (Trini Alvarado) has awoken to find Nicky (Robin Johnson) gone. The shot reverses to reveal Pamela’s viewpoint: Nicky’s now-empty bed, and through the window behind it, the World Trade Center towers.

Contemporary analyses of Times Square frequently note that the film presages the loss of a city. This loss of buildings and neighbourhoods extends beyond “mere” architecture — as if architecture ever designates material structures alone — to a cultural geography that maps absence.

But the loss that I feel most sharply when I now watch the film can be evoked by a single image:

Nicky and Pammy’s blood oath, with Nicky’s assurance that she will not hurt Pammy, the drawing of (first) blood, the frenzied yet desperate calling of each others’ names, functions as a cinematic coding for loss of virginity / sexual activity. But it is the literal mingling of fluid in the blood oath that now makes me shiver: at the moment of filming, at Times’s Square‘s release (1979-80), New York City was about to become one of the epicenters of the AIDS epidemic. As Joseph F. Lovett’s remarkable documentary Gay Sex in the Seventies (2005) demonstrates, a culture was about to be devastated. Such an image could never be viewed innocently again.

In memory of those “not lost, but gone before,” on World AIDS Day.

Times Square, Here no More

each day the long light dims and fades
not lost, but gone before
(the breeders)

Robin Johnson in “Film Review,” Oct. 1980

This article is from the October 1980 issue of Film Review. It is part of a two-page feature on new films about young women in music; the preceding page focuses on Hazel O’Connor in Breaking Glass (dir. Brian Gibson, 1980).

As with most contemporary reviews, the article posits Time Square as a film in which the desire to become a rock star propels the narrative and drives the protagonists. I find this really interesting, because to me, this is an almost incidental aspect of the film. (Unless “become a rock star” is dyke code for “get a hot girlfriend”; it’s possible, because I was and remain out of the loop. Nevertheless…)

Otherwise, the article focuses on the film as debut for the “witty and talented” Robin Johnson, a “pretty girl displaying a keen sense of humour.” Until reading this article I didn’t know that to prepare for the role of Nicky Marotta, Johnson had “voice lessons, singing tutorial and dance and movement classes.” Also that she had never eaten flowers before.
Sheltered, eh?

Times Square press kit photographs: Nicky and Pammy (1981)

This post is my final in the series of Times Square press kit photographs. I do not have individual slips for these 1981 photographs, but this is the general promotional description of the film:

Times Square, a contemporary drama with music starring Tim Curry, Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado, is a Robert Stigwood Presentation, produced by Stigwood and Jacob Brackman and directed by Alan Moyle from Brackman’s screenplay, based on a story by Moyle and Leanne Unger, with Kevin McCormick and John Nicollela the executive producers and Bill Oakes the associate producer.
The EMI Films motion picture will be released on Friday, October 17 in the U.S. and Canada by AFD (Associated Film Distribution).

TS-28/14
© 1981 Associated Film Distribution

TS-C-34/29
© 1981 Associated Film Distribution

TS-81/34
© 1981 Associated Film Distribution

And my favourite of them all…

TS-C-22/27
© 1981 Associated Film Distribution
… in which Robin Johnson (as Nicky Marotta) does her version of Dorothy’s “We’re Off to See the Wizard” dance from The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939)!
(Like many women of a, i.e. my, certain age, I’d always dreamed of Robin Johnson as a “friend of Dorothy.” Sadly, this is probably as close as I will ever get to that…)

Times Square press kit photographs: Nicky and Pammy (1980)

“TS-61-14 Trini Alvarado as Pamela Pearl and Robin Johnson as Nicky Marotta become minor media celebrities when their bizarre runaway escapades are reported on radio by an all-night disc jockey in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-82-30 Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado are New York teenagers whose runaway antics and revolt against authority make them the talk of The Big Apple through the radio reports of an all-night disc jockey in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-28-28 Robin Johnson, as self-styled ‘Sleaze Sister,’ takes a final rebellious stand against authority atop a Times Square theater marquee, as Trini Alvarado, her fellow runaway and Sleaze Sister, watches in the nerve-tingling climactic scene of Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-94-10A Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado co-star as two-runaway teenagers in New York who create their own bohemian life style in a revolt against authority in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-109-16 Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado portray New York runaway teenagers who revolt against authority and are encouraged to continue their escapades and ‘fly’ by an all-night radio disc jockey in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-104-17A Trini Alvarado is a novice dancer on the runway of a sleazy Times Square nitery but keeps the job as a teenage attraction with the encouragement of her fellow runaway, played by Robin Johnson (lower left), in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-72-8A Robin Johnson (right) is determined to become a rock music star, Trini Alvarado is her fellow teenage runaway and their wild, bizarre escapades in New York make them minor media celebrities when reported by an all-night radio disc jockey in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

Times Square press kit photographs: Tim Curry

“TS-78-2 Peter Coffield (left), ambitious New York politician and widower, confronts disc jockey Tim Curry when the all-night performer encourages Coffield’s runaway daughter to continue her rebellion against authority in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

“TS-66-28 Tim Curry, British actor-singer best known for his rock star role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is starred as Johnny LaGuardia, all-night disc jockey in New York whose encouragement on the air to two runaway teenage girls turns them into minor media celebrities in Times Square.”
© 1980 Associated Film Distribution

© 1981 Associated Film Distribution