October 1981: Times SquareGreat TV Entertainment…?

Posted on 27th December 2018 in "Times Square"
Cover of October 1981 TV listings magazine for Showtime and The Movie Channel


 
 

 

According to the October 1981 issue of Great TV Entertainment, the official schedule for Showtime and The Movie Channel, Times Square was shown six times on The Movie Channel, on October 25, 27, and 31. I could have sworn it was shown many times more than that; the showings must have continued into November, or perhaps it was also shown on HBO like everybody, including me, remembers.

 

October 1981 TV listings for Showtime and The Movie Channel Relevant text: SHOWTIME THE MOVIE CHANNEL TIMES SQUARE Two misfit teenagers become runaway rebels roaming the streets of New York City. They find fame--and disaster-as the rock ’n’ rolling Sleaze Sisters. Trina Alvarado and Robin Johnson co-star. Language. (R-1:51) Oct.25,27,31-M

TIMES SQUARE
Two misfit teenagers become runaway rebels roaming the streets of New York City. They find fame–and disaster-as the rock ’n’ rolling Sleaze Sisters. Trina Alvarado and Robin Johnson co-star. Language. (R-1:51) Oct.25,27,31-M

 

 

Times Square got a photo and a little blurb, which was more than Let It Be got. Maybe that’s why Let It Be is one of the few movies that’s now harder to see than Times Square. (… Nah.)

The photo, typically, isn’t a frame from the movie. It’s a publicity still shot on set that is making its first appearance in this magazine. The AFD/EMI/RSO promotion people had been sitting on this gem for a year. No wonder the movie flopped.

October 1981 TV listings for Showtime and The Movie Channel, contents page detail

 

 

Great TV Entertainment, October 1981 (monthly (publication) (AAT ID: 300311879))
20.75 x 13.5 cm. (work);
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Great TV Entertainment 1981-10 p4_1080px.jpg
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Great TV Entertainment 1981-10 p11_1080px.jpg
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Great TV Entertainment 1981-10 p2_detail_800px.jpg
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(images)
 
©1981 TVSM, INC.

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+

 

Times Square Hits US Cable TV, October 1981

Posted on 15th December 2018 in "Times Square"
Robin Johnson's head shot for TIMES SQUARE, in costume as Nicky Marotta, photographed by Yoram Kahana, printed in 1981 for the film's showings on The Movie Channel. Text: THE MOVIE CHANNEL ROBIN JOHNSON is an uninhibited product of the streets who sets New York City on edge as a wild runaway from authority in "Times Square." See it in October on THE MOVIE CHANNEL.

ROBIN JOHNSON is an uninhibited product of the streets who sets New York City on edge as a wild runaway from authority in “Times Square.” See it in October on THE MOVIE CHANNEL.

 

A year after its brief run in theaters, Times Square made it to HBO, and I watched it every single time it ran. This was before my family had a VCR, but my dad had access to a Sony Porta-Pak open-reel video recorder, and I recorded the movie across four reels, during four broadcasts, in glorious black-and-white, and watched it many times over the next few years, until I went off to college and the Porta-Pak went back to wherever it came from. I do still have the reels, but nothing to play them them on, assuming there’s still a signal on them. There’s a slim possibility that the American trailer is also on one of those reels: it was used to promote the movie on HBO, and I remember poring over the movie every time I saw it wondering how I kept missing the scene where Nicky and Pammy were splashing each other in the river.

The only thing inaccurate about the above is, although I and everybody else I’ve spoken to who also watched those cable screenings remember vividly that it was on HBO, the only evidence I’ve ever found indicates that it was actually The Movie Channel. And so far, I’m also the only one willing to admit that my memory may be faulty on that one detail. Times Square fans can be obstinate.

This photo is TS-57-26/1 from the US Press Material folder, with The Movie Channel’s logo replacing AFD’s on the now slightly expanded white border. The caption is edited from the one supplied with that photo, over a year before. After all the variants and previously unseen promotional photos that came out as Times Square was released around the world, its television debut was promoted with one of the first shots ever released.

 

 

[TS-57-26 Movie Channel variant]
black-and-white photograph, AAT ID: 300128347
US, 1981 ; 8″ x 10″ (work)
1981-10 Head shot Movie Channel variant_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 865 px (W), 96 dpi, 345 kb (image)

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+

 

Filmstar, Vol. 1 No. 6, Thailand, October 1981

Posted on 3rd December 2018 in "Times Square"

Cover of a movie magazine from Thailand containing article on Robin Johnson  Text:  Fortnightly Friend of the Film Buff  FILMSTAR Volume 1 No. 6 / October 1, 1981  Special A new Bond girl FOR YOUR EYES ONLY  Free Color Poster  12.

 

 

 

 

I would think that by October of 1981, a year after its initial release in New York, and two or three months after its Thai release, Times Square would have long since closed in Thailand and become a distant memory. But that didn’t stop Filmstar magazine from running an article promoting Robin herself, very much like the interviews with Robin published during her publicity tour nine months previous.

ROBIN JOHNSON
A quick-witted likeable young lady

Do you still remember Nicky, a quick witted rebelliously likable young girl from Times Square? If you are also someone who fell in love with that Nicky, here is a tiny reminiscence that she is happy to share. Even though it is not going to be as exciting as in the film, I bet you wouldn’t mind learning from her.

Nicky is Robin Johnson, 17 year old teenager from Brooklyn. Her accent is clearly a unique and gravelly Brooklynese when she speaks. When we met her, Robin Johnson’s hair was still chopped in a shaggy cut. “It would be too expensive to go to a beauty shop and have it stripped out.” she says, “And it would take hours. I’ll just wait till it grows back in the real way.”

Robin still remembers the role of Nicky so well even though a year has passed by. She and Trini Alvarado are friends on and off screen. 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 remember the song called Damn Dog so well. 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.”

Robin starts to giggle when she thinks about one scene in the movie. “I’m really very wild-looking. I wear a mask like the Lone Ranger and a blue turtleneck sweater with blue glitter tights and a plastic-garbage-bag belt!”

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.’”

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.”

Robin remembered a casting scout, who arranged for Robin to go to an audition in Manhattan. That audition feels like it wrecks her brains. Back then, in her head she thought “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. “I had to fill out a sheet with height, weight, eye color, hair color—stuff like that. Then, they’re putting me on tape, inside the studio room I was sitting there like a dummy and read the script. I don’t know why they have chosen me but I got a part in Times Square.”

“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.”

I managed to have this article translated professionally by Joy Busai (whose website, www.thaienglishhq.com, unfortunately seems to be down at the moment), and she noticed that it seemed itself to be an almost word-for-word translation into Thai of Robin’s interview in Seventeen Magazine from October 1980. While it got me a discount on the translation, it was something of a disappointment to find that one of the last contemporary Times Square articles contained absolutely nothing new.

Photo roundup: Page 40 is cropped from the image used most prominently for a UK lobby card.

Bottom left on p. 41 is the shot published in Playboy, Vol. 28 No. 1, January 1981. Top to bottom at right: a shot of the final concert previously used on the UK soundtrack sampler; Nicky cutting Pammy’s hand, with a boom microphone front and center, as seen in the Japanese souvenir program book; a previously-unpublished, as far as I know, full frame from the film showing the extra empty space at the top; and a shot of Robin as Nicky that accompanied her October 1980 interview in Seventeen, which itself was translated into Thai in the issue of Filmstar three months before this one.

Page 41, top left, is the Yoram Kahana shot that first appeared, again as far as I know, in Movie 81 No. 2. Directly below is UK publicity still 21. Below that, captioned “ROBIN”, is TS-69-34A/4. To its right is a shot taken within seconds of the UK lobby card but itself seems to be making its first appearance here. To the right is TS-82-30/4, and finally at the bottom right is another frame from the film with extra space at the top and bottom.

See also:

U.K. Lobby Cards (post 1 of 3)
UK Promo Photos 4, 13, and 21, 1980-81
Times Square Press Material folder (post 4 of 5)
U.K. Lobby Cards (post 3 of 3)
Times Square Press Material folder (post 5 of 5)

 

 

Times Square (article, AAT ID: 300048715)
Filmstar Vol. 1 No. 6, 1 October 1981, pp. 40-42 (magazine (periodical), AAT ID: 300215389)
25.9 x 18.9 cm. (work);
Filmstar_v1_n6_19811001_p 01_layers_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 795 px (W), 96 dpi, 490 kb
Filmstar_v1_n6_19811001_p 40_layers_1080px.jpg
235 px (H) x 776 px (W), 96 dpi, 458 kb
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Filmstar_v1_n6_19811001_p 42_1080px.jpg
688 px (H) x 774 px (W), 96 dpi, 479 kb
(images)
 

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+