THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (New World Pictures)

Directed by Jeff Stein)

by Mitch Cohen

Typical of the oblique strategies employed by The Kids Are Alright is the curious fact that the song that gives the film its title is never performed, heard or referred to. Such evasions, which seem willfully designed to withhold information most of us would consider pertinent to a celluloid history of the Who—would you believe nary a mention of Keith Moon's passing and the effect on the group's future? Or of KenRussell's Tommy (or Daltrey's movie career)? Or of their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival?—make Jeff Stein's loving compilation like a visual greatest hits album without liner notes. What attempts there are to put the Who in some kind of historical rock perspective, mostly through Pete Townshend's articulate interpolation, are so sketchy that only the already Who-converted are likely to get the point, and they've probably seen much of this footage at rock conventions; The Kids Are A Iright is a fanzine movie without a fanzine's attention to chronological detail.

And yet for those appreciators of the Who's musical contributions to whom this material isn't familiar, the memory jolt can quicken tire heart. . Unlike movie stars, the early incarnations of rock groups are usually obliterated by later developments (icons like the Beatles and Elvis are obviously another matter entirely), and seeing the Who doing "1 Can't Explain" in a Shindig kinescope—fresh-faced young mods ready to take on the world—is a genuine, unexpected thrill. Who can remember how, back in 1965, we first encountered the Who? Not through radio, certainly. But somehow, copies of "I Can't Explain," "Substitute," and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" turned up and were passed around with just the slightest hushed wonder, and when rumors surfaced that Decca would release a whole album of this stuff1, there was disbelief: there were no LPs without hit singles in those days. My Generation was real. The Who were the original underground band, and in a way they deserve this cultish movie.

As happened in their career, the Who's movie becomes less kinetically gripping as time runs on. No one is denying the impact of "Won't Get Fooled Again," pr even "Who Are You," but in The Kids Are Alright they don't come in any real context; there's not even a sense of just how important Tommy was in propelling them from virtual unknowndom in the U.S. to the status they eventually attained. It's all thrown on the screen randomly, interspersed with interviews that reveal more personality than theory (this from a band whose appeal and significance rests so much on the balance of Townshend's complexity, Moon's lunacy and Daltrey's electricity). It's nice to finally view a sequence from the long-suppressed Stones' Rock and Roll Cihcus ("A Quick One"), and a "Happy Jack" promo film, and a live "I Can See For Miles"; to have performances preserved from when the Who were the most exciting show band in rock 'n' roll.

But it's not enough. Not when the pacing and assembling are amateurish, when we're denied the critical distance that could have traced the "growth" from "My Generation" to Quadrophenia, or shown hoW aging affected Townshend's writing and the Who's identity, or pointed out how much "Anarchy In The U.K." owes to the teenaged madman named Keith Moon. The Kids Are Alright is, needless to say, a Whophile's revel; what it lacks is its subject's drama, chaos, introspection, and ability to make the right move at the right time.

Bologna Not Woo

ROCK W ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (New World Picture)

Directed by Allan Arkush ■

Rock 'n'Roll High School tries really hard to be a fun movie; if it ends up not being quite as much fun as the starring Ramones, well, gabba gabba hey! Suzy never promised you a head banger!

Rock 'n'Roll High School is, of course, Roger Corman's rather belated tribute to that cheeky teenage music that bursts forth about the same time he was cranking out his early B movie classics. The plot, simplicity itself, is older than Chuck Berry's knees: blooming teenagers challenge oppressive school'authorities with the liberation of rock'n'roll.

The Ramones play themselves, logically enough, but in the fantasy universe of R 'n'R H. S., they really are brothers, and they're already as hugely popular as we've been demanding all these years. The tumultuous concertclimax(filmedatL.A.'sRoxy) sumsup aU i of our most extravagant hopes for the Ramones' coming stardom, as well as providing a lot of good satire of the current rock scene. (Sharp-eyed viewers should watch fpr CREEMsters Billy "Mod" Altman and R. "Animal" Meltzer, at the head of the line of concert ticket purchasers.)

But the boulevard to the Ramones' concert blowout is littered with a number of rather tedious boy-wants-girl subplots that might have been borrowed from old Henry Aldrich movies. And the school principal, rather than the pompous buffoon Mr. Weatherbee-type that would inspire practical jokers like the Ramones, just has to be a full-scale Nazi, in the best tradition of Animal House. PrincipalTogar even attempts a "FINAL SOLUTION" to the students' rebellion, by burning their rock records in the school courtyard.

The students reply with a bonfire of their own, burning down Vince Lombardi High, and reducing Miss Togar to suitably quivering jelly .■ At this apocalyptic finale, you begin to wonder just what all this political violence has to do with the anti-heroic, punk-next-door Ramones. Hearing the MC5's "High School" (which didn't survive the record version of the soundtrack) reminded me of how perfect a vehicle R 'n'R kf.S. would've been for them, if somebody had thought of it in 1970.

So Rock 'n'Roll High School is not the Ramones' Hard Day's Night, not yet, but as a showcase for the Ramones' rock 'n' roll inevitability, it's absolutely essential. There are six (6) minutes'til showtime, just time enough for the Ramones to squeeze outfour more songs and conquer your rock ' n' roll world.

Richard Riegel

Prime Time

Love Handles Of The Amazon

by Richard C. Walls_

Pan cultural images aren't digested too easily by diehard media freaks like myself because such images are still so rare— but it's gonna be a little easier now that I've s4en Uncle Miltie chatting with Ornet&te Coleman behind the end credits of a recent Saturday Night Live. After that strangeness,'there's not much left that can boggle the mind of this veteran of the we vs. them brigade. Still, on that night,'sprawled amongst the ruins of Romilar-soaked pizza, with some random friends in various states of senselessness (like, from senseless to mighty senseless), boggled I was as I nodded into a dream wherein I was watching, on die tube.. .

... Sammy Davis, Jr., on the set of his old talk show, standing in front of George ("take a bow George—my man, he's been with me for 5,000 years") Rhodes and the band, introducing Ornette Coleman: "Ladies and Gentlemen... this next man... a true artist, a true friend... it's really an honor to have him on our stage just as it's an honor, really, to have him as a true friend and I mean thatfrom the bottom of my heart ... and I know that may sound corny but I don't care because I mean it and we know, we who are so fortunate as to be in this business, thatthat's where it's really at... uh... Ladies and Gentlemen, a genius, a beautiful performer, and one of nature's pussycats, I really love this man, Ornette Krellman!" But before Krellman/ Coleman can make his entrance the picture fades, like an old movie dissolve...

... to reveal a vision which, tho slightly distorted, I recognize as one from my well-spent youth when I loitered and logged time at front row center in some of Detroit's more gloriously sleazy movie palaces. This vision, mostly in green, is from a 50's epic called Love Slaves Of The Amazon. (Has there ever been a more sublime film title? Have there ever been more ecstatic moments than the ones comprising those mind bending marathons of front row fever? You bet there have... but it's still a nice title and I didn't make it up.) The distortion of the vision is not due to my dream set but rather the vision's content 'cause instead of the customary curvaceous B movie bimbos in summer of '58 loin cloths and Sears & Roebuck halter tops, languishing in thefoliage with provocative bananas, there appears before my steeped eyes a bunch of fat broads (and lest the gentle reader is becoming alarmed by the sexist tone this narrative has taken I hasten to add that no amount of consciousness raisingcan tame the vicious tenor of piy dreams. Sad) larding about in the greenery and greedily stuffing giant mutated mangoes into their fat gobs. Bleech. But once again a fade...

... which reveal^the cavernous set of a Jerry Lewis MD telethon. Surely at this point I moaned in my sleep. Jerry's in the middle of a pitch "... so re me mber folks even jive ass niggers get muscular dystrophy so won't you put up or get shut out now?" Wuzzat? "And now some more entertainment, these people come on here for nothing, I mean for no salary , so the least you can do is to give and give until your guts come out your nose, blah blah blah" and then, I could see it coming, Mr. Hostile introduces Elvis Costello who launches into "Busy Bodies"—"busy bodies, very busy, getting nowhere"—walking on his ankles (which is a piece of schtick Uncle Miltie used to do on the old Texaco show) irito a medium close-up apd merciful fade...

... back to thejungle where the tubbos are engaged in some hideous war dance. Ominous African cum Hollywood percussion sounds mix in an unholy cacophony along with the wanton thwacking of thunderous thighs. "Please God or Thoth or whoever turns out to be in charge," j1 , dreampray, "let me wake up, I'll be good, or at ' least a little better—anyway I'm willing to discuss it." But before I can adequately cop my plea there's another dissolve...

'... and I'm watching The Tonight Show. Praise be toCthulhu, I might get through this dream yet. Or maybe not... Johnny Weissmuller is sitting to Carson's right, and he's drooling. To the right of the senile apeman sits LeRoi Jones (yeah, I know it's Imamu Baraka now, but in my dream the name change didn't take). Weissmuller wearing his Jungle Jim outfit, the khaki number with the weird hat, but he's talkingTarzan. "Then Cheetah die. Then rains come. Then Jane split. Then.., " Jones is getting audibly imitated. "Ever been to Newark, honky pig?" "Um' gawa!" the apeman barks at h im (baiks?) thdn turns back to Johnny. "Then get TV series. Then get cancelled. Then get old and crazy. Then..." Close-up of Carson looking straight into the camera and doing his best Oliver Hardy take. This is getting good. But it dissolves...

... back to the frolicking fatsoes, now dancing around a huge black cauldron in which, neck deep in boiling Country Time, Uncle Miltie and « Ornette Coleman are chatting amiably. The credits for Saturday Night Live begin to roll and...

I awake. My face is in the pizza (at least I hope that's what it is—it feels awfully mushy) and out of the corner of my eye I can see that one of my "houseguests" (astral transients—friends who habitually leave their bodies behind) is nodding out with a dangerously lit joint on his lower lip, about to set fire to his "I Love Detroit, Insanely" t-shirt. I

And with a wealth of emotion and a poverty of imagination it dawns on me that it's Sunday. I can sleep in.