‘The Runaways’ Not Quite the Whole Story

Music video director Flora Sigismondi’s highly anticipated film “The Runaways”, starring Joan clone Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, based on lead singer Cherie Currie’s autobiography “Neon Angel” and executive produced by Jett, doesn’t exactly tell the whole story.   Along with the alleged Jett-Currie girl-on-girl action what you won’t see are the band’s the two main bassists, here represented by a fictional character named Robin.  Sad thing that.  We’ll get to why that is in a moment but first a little backstory.

Kristen Stewart is Joan Jett

The Runaways came together after then-13 year old songwriter Kari Krome introduced Jett to Fowley who in turn hooked her up with drummer Sandy West.  When Jett and West hit it off Fowley and famed L.A. disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer helped the girls find lead guitarist Lita Ford and the Lolita-ish Currie (played by Fanning in the film).  “Cherry Bomb” was written on the spot as an audition number for Currie when the Suzi Quatro song she had prepared was met with derision by the other girls.  Jackie Fox, who had originally auditioned for the lead guitar spot, was eventually brought in to play bass and the line-up was complete.  Within a year the band would release their debut and make their first steps down the anything-but-primrose path to rock stardom.  Though Goldie and the Gingerbreads had pioneered the concept at the tail end of the girl-group era, the idea of an all-female, let alone teenaged, rock band was pretty novel in the mid-70’s.

According to 2004 documentary “Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways” (made by Fox’s later replacement, Vicki Blue with the participation of all members save for Jett) Fowley put the band through an intense rehearsal regimen that he referred to as “boot camp.”

Referring to the girls as “dog-cunt” and “dog-piss” he prepared them for onstage heckling by hurling all manner of garbage at them during practice.  Fowley’s manipulation and abuse (allegedly extendeding to the sexual realm) along with the influence of any number of other adult men surrounding the band would do the band as much (and in some cases much more) harm than good.  By the time of their second album, “Queens of Noise”, the girls had developed drug habits, drinking problems and Currie was faced with the horror of an abortion.  Rivalries within the band, fuelled both by Fowley’s actions and Ford’s bad attitude, would further test the limits of all involved.

On their triumphant 1977 tour of Japan the band were met with the kind of fanfare that remained firmly out of reach at home.  At the time they were the #4 imported music act in Japan and each of their scheduled shows had sold out prior to their arrival.  Unfortunately, for all the excitement of the moment the girls’ tenuous bonds would be shaken once again by the suicide attempt and eventual departure of Fox (Lita Ford’s amused reaction to which in the documentary is beyond reproach).  Broken by self-loathing and abuse suffered at the hand of the band’s road manager Fox was found in her hotel room by a worried Currie with a piece of glass in hand cutting herself.  She left Japan early, with Jett replacing her on bass for the remainder of the Japanese shows.   Though the band would continue on, recording two more albums with Jett assuming lead vocal duties after Currie’s subsequent exit, Fox leaving the band was undoubtedly the beginning of the end.

Though no film could possibly tell the whole story, that this very serious incident will be given no screentime is a shame.  Fox’s experience in Tokyo says perhaps the very most about what can happen when teenage girls are left in the hands of adult men who may not have their best interests at heart, which is undoubtedly the crux of what ought to be at stake in the film’s narrative.  Still, I can’t help but be excited about March 19th.  Even the worst movies about music can rest on the laurels of the musical legacy to which they’re tied.  In that sense “The Runaways” will have to work pretty damn hard to not be thrilling.