Robin Johnson

And this, of course, is the look they settled on for Nicky, ultimately using this photo on nearly all the American publicity materials. As this is the outfit she wears when the girls escape from the hospital, it was likely taken near the end of production, so the shaggy hair cut of someone who hasn’t got time for finesse with scissors is the wig Robin wears during act one.

Someone noticed what was going on in New York City in 1979, dressing Nicky in a leather jacket festooned with pins a la the Ramones, but even here the film’s roots are showing. The Blondie pin is contemporary, but the “Rolling Stones In Concert” pin could date from any time in the previous ten years, the happy face button from the previous 15 years, and the “Stick It In Your Ear” and “I Am Anonymous – Help Me” pins date from the late ’60s-early ’70s. And here’s where we can start speculating about the costuming, and seeing how pieces that may be totally coincidental may actually fit together… The Blondie pin is by itself, separate from the others. Perhaps the jacket itself really belongs to Nicky’s dad, who (although excised from the film) in the script seems to be a burned-out product of the ’60s; all the pins were his, except the Blondie one, added by Nicky herself. On the other hand, leather doesn’t seem to be Roger’s style. He seems more the denim or military fatigue jacket type. Maybe the jacket belonged to Nicky’s mom. Chew on that one.

Yes, she’s wearing a button that says “HELP ME.” I have more to say about that, but not here.

The back of the jacket sports a large colorful butterfly applique. Nicky gives this jacket to Pammy. I have plenty to say about that too, but I’ll wait until I post a picture where the butterfly is visible.

With only one or two exceptions, all the production photos, including the ones like these that were only meant for promotional purposes, show the actors costumed and in a location indicating what scene they were shooting when the photo was taken. These photos feature the outfit Nicky is wearing when the girls escape the hospital, except for the cap, which Trini Alvarado wears in her photos from this shoot. But, the location… trees? I don’t recall the girls making a stop in Central Park… I believe these shots were taken just as they were starting to film the “lost” scene by and in the Hudson River, on a piece of undeveloped shoreline in New Jersey. That’s the only non-urban location in the script.
 

In the screenplay, Nicky buys (or steals) hair dye from Woolworth’s while wearing the ambulance driver’s coat and hat, so perhaps she put her jacket back on after they crossed the bridge. But in the film, she makes a huge point of changing her clothes while still in the ambulance, handing her jacket to Pammy; a bit of business not in the script. I wonder if perhaps the ambulance ride was shot after the river scene had already been cut, and was itself hastily rewritten to try to minimize what they could see was going to be a huge continuity problem. I know it was rewritten to improve Nicky’s dialog (or perhaps they left in some improvisation by Robin).

If all goes well, this post will go up on October 17, 2014, the 34th anniversary of Times Square’s general release in North America. (And it did! But I edited it, adding a picture and doubling the amount of text on October 29. So, always keep your eyes peeled for updates.)

[Added 18 June 2017: I posted this particular black-and-white photo because it’s the most complete version of the image I’ve come across, but I’ve come to realize that the item itself is number 36 in the main series of publicity stills from the UK, which were produced in late 1980 or early 1981, to promote the 15 January 1981 UK premiere. The image belongs here, but strictly speaking the item itself should probably have been the post after this one.]