Robin Johnson

Two UK black and white press photos on a single 8 x 10 print.

Who exactly printed these, and why, are mysteries, as I haven’t yet come across any publication that used them, but their country of origin is made clear by the captions announcing Times Square’s release in the UK.

A bigger mystery is why the photo captions lead off by misspelling Robert Stigwood’s surname “Stigward”. There’s at least one more 2-on-1 8×10 like this one (see next post), and it maintains the “Stigward” spelling.

The top photo is a version of TS-72-8A/14 from the US press kit, cropped to show less at the top and more at the left, right, and bottom. The most interesting thing about it it the tiny number 20 at its lower right, in the style of the photos from the UK Press Kit.

The bottom photo, as far as I know, has never appeared anywhere else. It comes from the end of the dancing-along-42nd-Street scene, when they find that someone has spray painted “No Sense Makes Sense – The Sleez Sisters” across a “Missing” poster of Pammy on the side of a city bus. Needless to say, the shot in the film is from a significantly different angle. Also, the scene cuts as Nicky is blacking out Pammy’s eyes, and here Pammy and Nicky admire her completed work, including Nicky’s addition of the legend “Nick & Slick”.

For what it’s worth, this moment is to me the biggest continuity error in the movie. In the film, only Pammy is around when Nicky utters the phrases “Sleez Sisters” and “No Sense Makes Sense”. In the script, there are indications that Johnny has had them in the WJAD studio several times broadcasting their philosophy to the tri-state area, but in the movie, local girls are apparently receiving psychic transmissions from Pier 56. It still works though, adding to the dream logic that underpins the entire movie. There’s no way this could have happened, but of course it did, because it has to. Yes, it makes no sense, but No Sense Makes Sense. It’s pointless to argue about logic flaws in Times Square, because logic isn’t the point, the point is raw emotion, as embodied in Nicky Marotta.

That the incoherent form of the film reflects the intent in this way is a complete accident; I’m certain Allan Moyle and Jacob Brackman weren’t trying to create a film that delivered its message through continuity problems. Moyle has said (in the Anchor Bay DVD commentary) that the script should have had another year’s development before filming, to iron out some of those problems; and if someone other than Robert Stigwood had produced it, the problems created after Moyle left the film wouldn’t have occurred. As I’ve said before, though, if this had happened, Times Square would have been a radically different movie, and wouldn’t have starred Robin Johnson, and I wouldn’t be here blathering on about it.

Now, “No Sense Makes Sense” having its origins as a Charles Manson quote, again betraying the late ’60s-early ’70s sensibilities of the film’s creators, and our heroines adopting it as a rallying cry, and myself using it to explain away the movie’s structural flaws… well, it makes me feel a little icky, but please somebody else discuss this in the comments. I’m really only here to show all the pictures I’ve collected, not to analyze the film. (Every once in a while I just can’t help myself though, as you can see.)