Canadian Movie Poster

Posted on 21st February 2016 in "Times Square"

The Canadian movie poster for "Times Square" is an American poster with white stickers over the American ratings. Text: In the heart of Times Square a poor girl becomes famous, a rich girl becomes courageous and both become friends. TIMES SQUARE ROBERT STIGWOOD Presents "TIMES SQUARE" Starring TIM CURRY ● TRINI ALVARADO And Introducing ROBIN JOHNSON Also Starring PETER COFFIELD ● HERBERT BERGHOF ● DAVID MARGULIES ● ANNA MARIA HORSFORD Executive Producers KEVIN McCORMICK ● JOHN NICOLELLA Directed by ALAN MOYLE Screenplay by JACOB BRACKMAN Story by ALAN MOYLE and LEANNE UNGER Produced by ROBERT STIGWOOD and JACOB BRACKMAN Associate Producer BILL OAKES An EMI Release Distributed in the U.S. and Canada By AFD (Associated Film Distribution) Soundtrack available on RSO Records and Tapes AFD RSO ADMITTANCE RESTRICTED TO PERSONS 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER 262 GAU GRAPHIC ARTS INTERNATIONAL UNION OFFICIAL UNION LABEL 796 PRINTED IN U.S.A. Property of National Screen Service Corporation. Licensed for use only in connection with the exhibition of this picture at the theatre licensing this material. Licensee agrees not to trade, sell or give it away, or permit others to use it, nor shall licensee be entitled to any credit upon return of this material. This material either must be returned or destroyed immediately after use. 800099

The movie poster for Times Square in Canada is almost identical to the U.S. poster. In fact, it is a U.S. poster, with two white stickers affixed to the bottom, one covering the American “R” rating barring under-17’s without a parent or guardian, and the other adding the Canadian “R” rating barring under-18’s entirely. Sorry, Canadian kids.

Part of the back of the Canadian "Times Square" movie poster.  Text:  [stamped]  PROPERTY OF CONSOLIDATED THEATRE SERVICES DON MILLS, ONTARIO  CALGARY, ALBERTA  80-99  [handwritten:]  Times Square

 

The back proudly bears stamps reading “PROPERTY OF CONSOLIDATED THEATRE SERVICES DON MILLS, ONTARIO | CALGARY, ALBERTA” and “80-99”. In the USA, 80-99-9 was the number assigned to Times Square by National Screen Service, and the poster itself has the number 800099 on the front. I believe the handwritten “Times Square” to have been added later, by a movie memorabilia dealer through whose hands the poster passed on its way to me.

 

 

“Times Square” Full Color One-Sheet Poster 800099, Canadian version, 1980;
color, 27 in (W) x 41 in (H) (work);
706 px (W) x 1080 px (H), 96 dpi, 432 kb (image)

inscription:
In the heart of Times Square
a poor girl becomes famous,
a rich girl becomes courageous
and both become friends.
TIMES SQUARE
ROBERT STIGWOOD Presents “TIMES SQUARE”
Starring TIM CURRY ● TRINI ALVARADO
And Introducing ROBIN JOHNSON
Also Starring PETER COFFIELD ● HERBERT BERGHOF ● DAVID MARGULIES ● ANNA MARIA HORSFORD
Executive Producers KEVIN McCORMICK ● JOHN NICOLELLA
Directed by ALAN MOYLE
Screenplay by JACOB BRACKMAN
Story by ALAN MOYLE and LEANNE UNGER
Produced by ROBERT STIGWOOD and JACOB BRACKMAN
Associate Producer BILL OAKES
An EMI Release Distributed in the U.S. and Canada
By AFD (Associated Film Distribution)
Soundtrack available on RSO Records and Tapes
AFD
RSO
ADMITTANCE
RESTRICTED
TO PERSONS
18 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER
262 GAU GRAPHIC ARTS INTERNATIONAL UNION OFFICIAL UNION LABEL 796
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
Property of National Screen Service Corporation. Licensed for use only in connection with the exhibition of this picture at the theatre licensing this material. Licensee agrees not to trade, sell or give it away, or permit others to use it, nor shall licensee be entitled to any credit upon return of this material. This material either must be returned or destroyed immediately after use.
800099
“Times Square” Full Color One-Sheet Poster 800099, Canadian version, reverse (detail), 1980 (work);
612 px (W) x 800 px (H), 96 dpi, 64.7 kb (image)

inscription:
IPROPERTY OF
CONSOLIDATED THEATRE SERVICES
DON MILLS, ONTARIO CALGARY, ALBERTA
80-99
Times Square

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+

 

Seventeen Magazine, Vol. 39 No. 10, October 1980

Posted on 11th February 2016 in "Times Square"

Cover of Seventeen Magazine, Vol. 39 No. 10, October 1980

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again presuming that any magazine dated October probably came out in September before the movie opened, here’s an interview with Robin that appeared as two pages of Edwin Miller’s “Spotlight: Movies, records, personalities” column.

 

Edwin Miller's "Spotlight" column featured a "Close-up" on Robin Johnson on pages 98 and 100. Text: Spotlight Close-up Brooklyn teen-ager Robin Johnson shakes up “Times Square” Robin Johnson's hair, chopped in a shaggy cut. is still bright henna-red. even though she has finished making the movie it was dyed for. Times Square—her first- in which she plays a teen-age runaway. "It would be too expensive to go to a beauty shop and have it stripped out." she says, her words tumbling out in a blue streak of throaty Brooklynese. "And it would take hours. I'll just wait till it grows back in the real way—dirty blonde." In the movie, she and Trini Alvarado, as another teen runaway, arc befriended by actor-singer Tim Curry as an all-night disk jockey. Trini wants to be a song-writer. Robin, a rock singer—finally, she does give a street concert in Times Square. "I love rock." Robin says. "Van Halen. Led Zeppelin. Music makes you feel good —and sometimes sad. I used to like Black Sabbath. All their songs are doom. Now I only listen to them if I'm in a certain kind of mood—destructive. The song I sing is called Damn Dog [Ed. note:Recorded on the RSO sound-track album]. It's not punk. I hate punk music, the real punk that comes from England—The Clash. Sex Pistols. They're maniacs: they want to die. I don't mind New Wave so much. It has the same kind of roots, but it's mellower." In the movie, her backup band, the Blondells, is called "a criminal band." "I v/ear a mask like the Lone Ranger and a blue turtleneck sweater with blue glitter tights and a plastic-garbage- bag belt! I'm really wild-looking.” Robin concludes v/ith satisfaction, "but the movie's larger than life. Some things in it are unbelievable—but who would want to see an everyday, routine, normal life in a movie? I wouldn't." Acting in the film was the first job Robin ever had. "That matures you. learning how to work and deal with people. Being street-smart helps in making a movie. There are certain rules you pick up— when to keep your mouth shut, when to do certain things. It's like being in a different neighborhood—some people might give you a hassle, but if they do. you should keep your mouth shut, even if you get mad. and just walk the other way and get out of there. I learned responsibility. You become more considerate. I liked everybody I worked with except two out of a hundred. One woman really gave me a fit —she was such a big complainer. she must have gotten a B.A. in complaining! After a while. I just avoided her except when I absolutely had to work with her. 'What am I going to get upset for?' I asked myself. 'I'm the one you see on the screen.'" Born in Brooklyn sixteen years ago, Robin goes to Brooklyn Tech high school. "I never get along with my teachers.” she says. "I'm rebellious. I don't like people in authority. One day after class. I was hanging outside with my friends, and a skinny-looking guy comes up the block and says. 'Are you sixteen?' I asked, What do you want to know for?' He turned out to be a casting scout, who arranged for Robin to go to an audition in Manhattan the following week. "I went after taking a three-hour geometry test, where you rack your brains. I just wanted to go home to sleep (continued on page 100) Spotlight continued from page 98 but my friend Cindi was with me. and she says. ‘No. no. no. you've got to go. and I'll go with you.' So we went. I had to fill out a sheet with height, weight, eye color, hair color—stuff like that. Then a blond girl came out of the studio where they were videotaping, and I pulled her aside. 'What did they make you do?' I asked, and she said. 'They make you improvise.' I remembered we did that in school a couple of times. You read a scene from a play and then do it your way. Inside, sitting there like a dummy, at first I had nothing to say. and they're putting me on tape, but finally they gave me a situation. I was supposed to be sixteen, having been picked up in Times Square after leaving reform school and taken for observation to a small room in a hospital, where there's a two-way mirror. Then I get teed off." They liked Robin’s improvisation. There were three thousand girls interviewed for the part; Robin won it. "It's a nice feeling to be picked out of so many.” Robin says. "People call me a natural talent, but what I say to that is that the character I play is very close to me so that my actions are natural. It's easy to play someone like yourself.” Around her neck, she wears a couple of gold chains. One has her birth sign. Gemini, dangling from it; the other, a tiny round gold circle, contains a diamond chip. "Trimi and I were given diamonds by the crew at a party when the movie was finished," Robin explains, her eyes wide. "When I saw the Tiffany bag it came in. I said. 'My God!' I put it on, and I haven't taken it off since."

 

The full column led off on page 93 with a look at Breaking Glass and a picture of Hazel O’Connor, but that’s where the similarities with the Film Review article end. Where that article was edited from various pages of the Press Kit, this one looks to have been the product of a genuine one-on-one interview with Robin. She explains how she hates punk rock, the story of her “discovery” has a few details that I don’t think are repeated anywhere else, she describes her audition… but how reliable these details are is a little questionable, since she mentions encouragement from her friend Cindi, and I’m fairly certain that’s actually a reference to her sister Cindy.

The photo of Robin Johnson from page 98 of Seventeen Magazine Vol 39 No. 10, October 1980, that accompanied Edwin Miller's interview of her.
I also don’t think the accompanying picture ever appeared anywhere else.

 

Here’s the text:

Spotlight Close-up

Brooklyn teen-ager Robin Johnson shakes up “Times Square”

Robin Johnson’s hair, chopped in a shaggy cut. is still bright henna-red. even though she has finished making the movie it was dyed for. Times Square—her first- in which she plays a teen-age runaway. “It would be too expensive to go to a beauty shop and have it stripped out.” she says, her words tumbling out in a blue streak of throaty Brooklynese. “And it would take hours. I’ll just wait till it grows back in the real way—dirty blonde.”

In the movie, she and Trini Alvarado, as another teen runaway, arc befriended by actor-singer Tim Curry as an all-night disk jockey. Trini wants to be a song-writer. Robin, a rock singer — finally, she does give a street concert in Times Square.

“I love rock.” Robin says. “Van Halen. Led Zeppelin. Music makes you feel good — and sometimes sad. I used to like Black Sabbath. All their songs are doom. Now I only listen to them if I’m in a certain kind of mood — destructive. The song I sing is called Damn Dog [Ed. note: Recorded on the RSO sound-track album]. It’s not punk. I hate punk music, the real punk that comes from England—The Clash. Sex Pistols. They’re maniacs: they want to die. I don’t mind New Wave so much. It has the same kind of roots, but it’s mellower.” In the movie, her backup band, the Blondells, is called “a criminal band.” “I wear a mask like the Lone Ranger and a blue turtleneck sweater with blue glitter tights and a plastic-garbage- bag belt! I’m really wild-looking.” Robin concludes with satisfaction, “but the movie’s larger than life. Some things in it are unbelievable — but who would want to see an everyday, routine, normal life in a movie? I wouldn’t.”

Acting in the film was the first job Robin ever had. “That matures you. learning how to work and deal with people. Being street-smart helps in making a movie. There are certain rules you pick up— when to keep your mouth shut, when to do certain things. It’s like being in a different neighborhood — some people might give you a hassle, but if they do. you should keep your mouth shut, even if you get mad. and just walk the other way and get out of there. I learned responsibility. You become more considerate. I liked everybody I worked with except two out of a hundred. One woman really gave me a fit — she was such a big complainer. she must have gotten a B.A. in complaining! After a while. I just avoided her except when I absolutely had to work with her. ‘What am I going to get upset for?’ I asked myself. ‘I’m the one you see on the screen.'”

Born in Brooklyn sixteen years ago, Robin goes to Brooklyn Tech high school. “I never get along with my teachers,” she says. “I’m rebellious. I don’t like people in authority. One day after class. I was hanging outside with my friends, and a skinny-looking guy comes up the block and says. ‘Are you sixteen?’ I asked, What do you want to know for?’ He turned out to be a casting scout, who arranged for Robin to go to an audition in Manhattan the following week. “I went after taking a three-hour geometry test, where you rack your brains. I just wanted to go home to sleep but my friend Cindi was with me, and she says. ‘No. no. no. you’ve got to go. and I’ll go with you.’ So we went. I had to fill out a sheet with height, weight, eye color, hair color—stuff like that. Then a blond girl came out of the studio where they were videotaping, and I pulled her aside. ‘What did they make you do?’ I asked, and she said. ‘They make you improvise.’ I remembered we did that in school a couple of times. You read a scene from a play and then do it your way. Inside, sitting there like a dummy, at first I had nothing to say. and they’re putting me on tape, but finally they gave me a situation. I was supposed to be sixteen, having been picked up in Times Square after leaving reform school and taken for observation to a small room in a hospital, where there’s a two-way mirror. Then I get teed off.” They liked Robin’s improvisation. There were three thousand girls interviewed for the part; Robin won it.

“It’s a nice feeling to be picked out of so many.” Robin says. “People call me a natural talent, but what I say to that is that the character I play is very close to me so that my actions are natural. It’s easy to play someone like yourself.”

Around her neck, she wears a couple of gold chains. One has her birth sign. Gemini, dangling from it; the other, a tiny round gold circle, contains a diamond chip. “Trini and I were given diamonds by the crew at a party when the movie was finished,” Robin explains, her eyes wide. “When I saw the Tiffany bag it came in. I said. ‘My God!’ I put it on, and I haven’t taken it off since.”

"Times Square" Screenplay by Jacob Brackman, 1979, 129 pp, p. 10  Text:  10 CONTINUED PEARL You're still nervous about sitting up on the podium with me . . . Is that it? PAMELA looks away. Because if it makes you too anxious, you can just sit in the audience . . Decide once we're there. Now how about some shut eye? We'll talk tomorrow. He exits. Pamela turns out her light. EXT THE HOPKINS DETENTION CENTER, THE BRONX DAWN Establishing shot of a minimum security compound. In¬ stitutional buildings surrounded by playing fields, gardens and a frost fence. INT HOPKINS CENTER: A QUIET-ROOM DAWN A lightly padded quiet-room. NICKY's radio-cassette rests on the unslept-in cot. NICKY seems to be rehearsing something in front of the observation window on the door. A light brightens behind the window. We can see a figure there. NICKY pantomines crawling up the walls, partly to charm the observer. She ends up clawing at the glass. ROSIE HAUSE enters, wearing a bathrobe. She is a 40 year old staffer, a social worker of resilient humor. Tough and street smart, she comes from the same side of the tracks as most of her clients. She double locks the door behind her and smiles. ROSIE What were you trying to prove, Nicky? CONTINUED
The scene she says she was given to improvise for her audition, in the room with the two-way mirror, is in the script and may even have been shot (there’s a photo that looks like it, published in an article I haven’t got to yet), but doesn’t appear in the film.

 

 

This image above of the interview looks almost identical to the one Bernadette McCallion gave me years ago, which I posted and which has been floating around the Web since, but it’s not – it’s a new scan made by me. Although, in comparing the two, I probably needn’t have bothered; hers is almost identical. It turns out pasting the parts of the two pages together like that is the best way to display them.

 

 

Miller, Edwin. “Spotlight Close-up: Brooklyn teen-ager Robin Johnson shakes up ‘Times Square'”. Seventeen Magazine, Vol. 39 No. 10, October 1980, pp. 98, 100, 14 October 1980 (work); 1080 px (W) x 746 px (H), 96 dpi, 429 KB (image)

 

Photo of Robin Johnson, detail from p. 98 of Seventeen Magazine, Vol. 39 No. 10 (work); 800 px (W) x 792 px (H), 96 dpi, 287 KB (image)

 

TIMES SQUARE, p. 10
Screenplay by Jacob Brackman
1979

 

Film Review, Vol. 30 No. 10, October 1980

Posted on 1st February 2016 in "Times Square"
“‘I’d sung in a choir when I was 12,’ Robin chirps…”

 

Film Review, Vol. 30 No. 10, October 1980 page 1

 

 

 

 

Assuming that any periodical dated October probably hit the stands in September, here’s a British magazine devoting an entire page to Robin, a month before Times Square’s premiere, and four months before it would open in the UK.
 

 

Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p8, the first half of "Two New Arrivals on the New Wave of Music", dealing with Hazel O'Connor and <em>Breaking Glass</em>Full page advertisement for "Breaking Glass" (1980)
 

The article is the second half of a two-page spread entitled “Two New Arrivals on the New Wave of Music.” The first arrival is Hazel O’Connor, whose film Breaking Glass opens on September 21st according to an ad on page 41 (another reason to think the magazine was out before then).
 

 

The photo of Robin that accompanies the article is this one, which I believe to have been taken by Mick Rock at the same session that produced the shot appearing on the back cover of the soundtrack album. The photo on the magazine’s contents page is also from that same session. This may have been the only time they saw print.

The article isn’t attributed to any author. I can’t speak to the Hazel O’Connor portion, but the Robin half was composed entirely through clever editing of the press materials we’ve already seen, to make it look like an original interview. Here’s the text as it appears in the article; compare it with Robin’s bio in the Press Kit. (Robin doesn’t “chirp” in the Press Kit.)

THE NEW WAVE OF MUSIC

America’s ROBIN JOHNSON in ‘Times Square’

R08IN JOHNSON also plays a rock star in a film bursting with New Wave sounds, this time an American film — the forthcoming Times Square — but unlike Hazel O’Connor (see opposite) Robin is still only in her mid-teens.

Director Allan Moyle, formerly an actor in films like Joe, Outrageous! and Montreal Main, searched high and low for his young star. With the assistance of an army of talent scouts, Moyle went to youth centres and punk clubs and even placed advertisements in newspapers in the hope of finding his leading lady.

A prospector finally spotted 15-year-old Robin smoking a sly cigarette on the steps of Brooklyn’s Technological High School. Despite the absence of any formal theatrical training — “I’d sung in a choir when I was 12” Robin chirps — Moyle signed her up immediately for the demanding role of Nicky Marotta, a 15-year-old street “delinquent” who dreams of becoming a rock star.

“We were looking for someone who was Nicky,” Allan Moyle explains, “but Robin’s definitely not that doomed child. Luckily for the picture she’s brought a lot more humour to the character than I had originally envisioned. Robin’s youthful innocence and energy buoy what might have been too much of a downer.”

Times Square, the first of four New York-based, multi-million dollar films to be produced by Robert Stigwood — already laughing all the way to the bank with Grease and Saturday Night Fever — is a contemporary drama about two very opposite youngsters yearning for the same dream: success at the top of the rock ‘n’ roll ladder. With a strong musical soundtrack performed by the likes of Patti Smith, Talking Heads and Tom Petty, Times Square takes over where Fame left off. and with a budget of $5½ million is the first New Wave-influenced film backed by a major studio.

“I was standing on the stoop at Brooklyn’s Technological High,” Robin recalls, “when a man gave me this card and said to call the number if I was interested in being in a movie. Well I just thought ‘Oh. another wise guy’, but gave it a shot.” The part of Nicky, a rebellious and spunky runaway, turned out to be a tougher role than young Miss Johnson had envisaged, calling for an intensive programme of voice lessons, singing tutorial and dance and movement classes, as well as performing on the roof of a 42nd Street theatre marquee, getting dumped in the polluted waters of the Hudson River (in December!) and having to chew a mouthfull of roses. “That was pretty disgusting. I’d never tasted flowers before,” Robin scowls.

Robin Johnson is a pretty girl displaying a keen sense of fun, as well as being both witty and talented. She also took to the rigours of film-making like a true professional.

But films aren’t the beginning and end-all of Robin’s life. “I hope Times Square does well, but it’s not the answer to my life, though I loved meeting and working with so many wonderful people. And I’d like to work with Allan again.” Let’s hope for our sakes that Times Square is the success Robin deserves.

Times Square is an EMI film co-starring Tim Curry as an all-night disc jockey and Trini Alvarado (from Robert Altman’s Rich Kids) as the timid 12-year-old whom Robin befriends.

I think that was the final mention of Tom Petty’s association with the movie.

Film Review was published by EMI Cinemas Ltd. Times Square was an EMI film in the UK, so perhaps it’s not surprising that their magazine would create an article from their own publicity materials. That’s what they’re for, after all.

Finally, here’s a better look at the photo from the contents page:Detail of the Mick Rock photograph of Robin Johnson from page 3 of Film Review, Vol. 30 No. 10, October 1980

Karen (DefeatedandGifted) wrote about this article in October 2011.

 

 

Film Review, Vol. 30 No. 10, October 1980;
UK EMI Cinemas Ltd.; 29.8 cm (H) x 21.3 cm (W) (work);
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p1_1080px.jpg (cover)
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p3_1080px.jpg (contents)
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p3_detail2_1080px.jpg (detail of contents page)
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p8_1080px.jpg (“Two New Arrivals on the New Wave of Music”)
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p9_1080px.jpg (“Two New Arrivals on the New Wave of Music”)
Film Review Vol 30 No 10 Oct 1980 p41_1080px.jpg (ad for Breaking Glass)
1080 px (H), 96 dpi (images)