THE RAMONES: HOT RODS TO HOLLYWOOD

THE RAMONES: HOT RODS TO HOLLYWOOD

CREEM GOES TO THE MOVIES CREEMAINS

Billy Altman

Originally published May 1979

Joey Ramone and I are standing in the first-floor hallway of a dilapidated, no-longer-being-used high school situated somewhere in one of the less fashionable neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Scarcely had we arrived for the day’s shooting on Rock ’n’ Roll High School—the New World Pictures (that’s Roger “King of the Drive-Ins” Corman’s company) film in which the Ramones make their cinematic debut—when director Allan Arkush walked over to us and shoved cans of spray paint into our hands. “Here,” he smiled, with a devilish twinkle in his eye, “whatever you always wanted to scrawl on the walls of your high school, now’s your chance.” So here we are, staring at the blank space reserved for us by the back stairwell (now, there’s a word I haven’t used in over a decade, although I confess that when I am caught in the rush-hour mass melee on the subways, I do still keep to the right going up and down the steps), index fingers on the push buttons. Ready to strike. I figure since this is the first time I've ever been on the other side of the silver screen, a bit of homage is in order, and so, with visions of Shelley Winters trying to climb the cyclone fence and escape from the concentration camp for the over-the-hill-ers in Wild in the Streets, I emblazon the famous “14 or fight” on the institutional green surface. Above me, the long arm of Little Joe Ramone is carefully administering the finishing touches on his masterpiece. All around us, lighting men and camera operators and shleppers are going about their chores. The secondunit director is trying to keep the noise level down from the gang of authentic all-American secondary schoolers who have been bused over from the good side of town to serve as extras in the movie, and the green-and-gold-outfitted cheerleaders are being given instructions about when to come down the stairs and go into their baton-twirling maneuvers during the upcoming filming of the student body going berserk to the tune of “Do You Wanna Dance?” Joey seems oblivious to all the frantic action around him as he posts his pressing declaration. I step back to see what he’s writing, and suddenly it’s all flashing before my eyes: the girl sitting in the next row in chemistry who you could never get the nerve up to even say hi to; the shmuck who used to push you from behind into your open locker and then disappear into the crowd before you could retaliate; the math teacher who only called on you for answers on days when you hadn’t done your homework; fire drills; detention; soggy salads in soggy paper cups. Yes, Joey has summed it all up, in foot-high letters that go off in all different directions. The one thing we never could really say to anyone during those difficult years—“HELP ME!!!”

Of course, Rock ’n’ Roll High School is a movie that turns the four-year prison sentence known as higher education completely on its ear. Set in the nottoo-distant future at mythical Vince Lombardi High School, the film is a good old-fashioned screwball comedy in which it’s the teachers and parents who are running scared, not the students. The wild and crazy cast of characters includes Riff Randell (played by P.J. Soles; she’s one of the sweet young things who get it in the midnight cult film Halloween, and since I’ve come back from L.A. I’ve spotted her in both a Datsun commercial and a Folgers coffee ad. Had I known about this sooner I woulda asked her for the dirt on Mrs. Olson and just what the hell does “mountain grown” mean anyway?), a gung ho rock ’n’ roller whose one big dream in life is to meet her very favorite band—the gang of four from the Bowery, natch—and give them a song she’s written expressly for them titled (what else?) “Rock ’n’ Roll High School”; Kate Rambeau (Dey Young), the “good" girl, pretty, well-bred, intelligent and she can’t stand it cuz she keeps making goo-goo eyes at of lunkhead Tom Roberts (Vince Van Patten, son of Dick), and he meanwhile wants one of those hip gals, namely Riff, so he seeks the aid and guidance of BMOC Eaglebauer (Clint Howard, brother of Opie), an industrious chap who is hot on the trail of his first million through various schemes that have everybody in the student body signed to contracts for “services rendered,” services like allowing you to get from freshman to sophomore year without getting killed, and Eaglebauer helps get Tom and Kate together, which is how it should be because this is a movie that believes in happy endings—wait till you see the school get blown up during the rip-snortin’ climax.

There’s also the tight-lipped, tight-legged principal Miss Togar (played to the hilt by Mary Woronov, a veteran of both Andy Warhol and Roger Corman films—now, that’s my idea of a combination) and her two Wing Ding Weisenheimer stooges, hall monitors Fritz Hansel and Fritz Gretel (Loren Lester and Daniel Davies), who are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to conduct the dreaded body search on the more nubile of the school’s female population; Mr. McGree (Paul Bartel), the music teacher who trades in Beethoven’s Fifth for the Blitzkrieg Bop during the course of the semester; our narrator/ newscaster Screamin’ Steve Stevens, played by DJ Don Steele (excuse me, the Real Don Steele), who had everyone in the screening room for the daily rushes on the floor with his various dramatic readings of “Sex...drugs...rock ’n’ roll...film at 11”; the hardboiled police chief Klein (played by Dick Miller.. .when I found out he was in the movie, I knew everything would be A-OK. Dick Miller, Corman’s man for all seasons: the guy who tells Jackie Joseph not to wrap up the flowers, he’ll eat ’em there in Little Shop of Horrors; the guy who kills his cat, tosses plaster of paris on the carcass, and becomes the hottest new sculptor in town in Bucket of Blood; the guy who saves would-be crooner Abby Dalton from the bad guys in Rock All Night. I really could go on forever; my feelings about Miller can best be summed up by that immortal line from one of the beach blanket movies, when Von Zipper says to Robert Cummings, “You is my idol”); the appropriately slimy manager (Herbie Braha) and the hot-stuff, streetwise groupie Angel Dust (Lynn Farrell), who tries to steal Riff’s song (horrors!); and, for the icing on the cake, the irrepressible Grady Sutton (the guard in The Bank DickV) as the head of the school board.

And, of course, Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Marky, who get to play and sing and also act a bit in the flick. Plenty of selections from each of the four albums are used throughout the movie; there’s good concert footage and, as bonuses, we get two new songs written specifically for the film: “Rock ’n’ Roll High School"—keep your fingers crossed, ye who are of the faith, maybe they’ll finally get a hit with this one. It combines the best parts of “Sheena” and “Rockaway Beach” together with an ace bridge that features Joey doing a Mike Love bass vocal and is, on the whole, everything an AM song should be, as opposed to what AM songs are these days—and “I Want You Around,” a truly lovely ballad with a multitude of textures and neat chord changes, and which is performed in the movie during a dream sequence with the band at Riff’s house, and though it was done before I got out to Tinseltown and so I didn’t get to see it, I’m told that it came off real well, especially Joey strolling through the high school holding hands with Riff and Dee Dee popping up playing bass in the shower—with the water running.

My week on the set comes during the third week of the four-week shooting schedule. Corman projects traditionally sport low budgets and superhumanly fast production timetables, and Rock ’n’ Roll High School, which is being done mainly because Arkush had finally put in enough time as an editor and assistant director at the Corman ranch to warrant the go-ahead for his own film, proceeds at breakneck pace. The days are long and hard and often quite tedious. No sooner does Arkush yell “Cut!” for one scene than everyone begins setting up for the next one. Even so, the technical side of things takes so long to straighten out all the time that more often than not, the actors and actresses find themselves showing up for work bright and early at nine and don’t get to do anything until three in the afternoon.

The Ramones hold up well under the circumstances, especially when you consider that this is a rock ’n’ roll band that really isn’t into wasting too much time when performing their usual work. One day we’re filming this scene in front of the Mayan Theater in downtown L.A. that has a bunch of kids waiting on line for tickets to the Ramones concert, and then the band rolls up in a big pink Cadillac with leopard-skin interior and walks past the crowd while lip-synching “I Just Wanna Have Something to Do.” Doesn’t seem all that complicated, but it feels like it’s taking forever. The car has problems going around the block because of the L.A. traffic; one time everything is going well, but then driver Rodney Bingenheimer, wearing sunglasses, parks the vehicle in the shade instead of the sun and the pulling-up-to-the-curb part must be redone. Then the soundtrack messes up as the guys are coming down the block. Then some of the assembled punk extras get into some extracurricular pogoing that leaves three wounded on the sidewalk.

Now me, I don’t mind much, cuz Arkush has placed R. Meltzer and I at the front of the line to ensure that our pusses get on the screen, and the two of us have spent most of the morning working out a mime comedy routine that most likely will wind up on the cutting-room floor, but we have fun doing it anyway. Meltzer’s wearing a “James Dean Is Queer” T-shirt, a leather jacket with the arms cut off, a meat hook, pop top rings on all of his fingers, and wraparound shades. I’m all geared up in ’65 innocent mod, striped sweater and Beatle boots, and we’re doing this bit where I cut myself on the meat hook and then Meltzer sells me an official punk ring for a buck. But the band just has to sit tight for hours on end, hanging out and hanging out and hanging out. But when it’s finally time for them to come up the street and pass the crowd, all the wasted time just gets them that much more aggressive, and the scene goes well.

Rock ’n’ Roll High School is a movie that turns the fourpear prison sentence known as higher education completely on its ear.

Similarly, the day of the special concert filming is one disaster after another. The band winds up being maneuvered around from 8 a.m. until midnight and has to do three separate short sets, which are filmed from various angles. And though they’re afraid of being rusty since the movie has upset their touring schedule for a few weeks, the shows provide an outlet for all the frustrations building up from lack of general activity (three weeks of hanging around the Tropicana and you’d be ready to kill too). “Pinhead’’ is the best number, what with Joey being photographed through a wide-angle lens that distorts his whole face while he’s yellin’ “Gabba Gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us,” and the band whipping into a frenzy that culminates with Joey brandishing his protest sign (wish I could see the crowd in the downtown Des Moines movie house when that moment transpires on the screen).

My favorite spot in the whole movie, though, occurs after the show, during the dressing room scene. Johnny and Marky come in dragging the exhausted Joey, limp like a six-foot-plus wet noodle, and they prop him up in a folding chair. Then Dee Dee arrives with eight pizzas, and everyone forgets about Joey, who’s too tired to get up and get some himself. But before anyone can give him some, their manager grabs Joey by the collar. “Joey, my little Joey,” he admonishes, “how many times do I have to tell you—no pizza for you. You need good food, healthy food. Wheat germ and protein and vitamins.” With that, he begins stuffing oats and alfalfa sprouts down Joey’s throat as fast as Joey can keep spitting it out. Arkush (who’s a real prince of a fella—runs around in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” Steadman original T-shirt one day, dons his official Fillmore East shirt the day of the concert shooting [he used to work on the light show there way back when]. Besides, I even got a line without asking for one) is having trouble controlling the laugh level from the crew during the take and just keeps shaking his head. “This is great,” he says to me. “You know, the health food idea was Joey’s.” When the scene is over, he puts his arm around Joey. “My son,” he beams.

Rock ’n’ Roll High School should be showing up in your town sometime soon, and hopefully it’ll give the Ramones the shot in the arm they so richly deserve. And won’t it be neat when, 15 years from now, we’ll be thumbin’ through TV Guide and there it’ll be, Saturday night at 2:35 a.m.: "Rock ’n’ Roll High School (1979): High school students run amok. Riff: P.J. Soles. Tom: Dick Van Patten. The Ramones: The Ramones.” And the next generation of little rockers will sit there and stare and dream about the glories of rock ’n’ roll past and plan its future... That reminds me—Riot on Sunset Strip is on next week. Just call me Aldo.