"Times Square" (1980) — does anyone remember this movie?

I remember it and I Want to be Sedated became an earworm for me.

OP, I loved this movie! I wanted to be just like the girls, who seemed very worldly.

Thanks for the recommendation OP. Watching it now

Trini Alvarado was around forever and always seemed on the brink of stardom. Yet she never got that great big hit - unless you count the ensemble piece LITTLE WOMEN.

You have to hand it to her, though - playing 18 when she was almost 30. A regular DL archetype!

I forgot to add: oldheads who remember the pre-gentrified New York will see lots of things they remember.

Trini also played Bette Midler's daughter in Stella, the awful remake of Stanwyck's Stella Dallas. Trini suffered from looking a lot like the somnambulent Andie McDowell and remarkably being an even less energetic presence onscreen which almost doesn't seem possible.

This movie was supposed to be New Wave's answer to Saturday Night Fever. It was supposed to do for Robin Johnson (who was under contract to Stigwood's organization) what SNF did for John Travolta.

It's not bad, but they edited it greatly. It was supposed to be more of a lesbian love story.

The director hated the Robin Gibb/Marcy Levy song that was put it at the end of the film (Stigwood demanded it be put in as he managed Gibb)

Saw it on HBO about three times in the 1980s. Kinda liked it, but it was no Streisand movie!

IMDb says Trini’s costar Robin Johnson did over 100 episodes of GUIDING LIGHT playing Darcy Dekker.

Was she any good?

My favorite part is where the Trini Alvarado character convinces a strip club owner to let her work in a strip club as a stripper that "doesnt strip"....

[quote]My favorite part is where the Trini Alvarado character convinces a strip club owner to let her work in a strip club as a stripper that "doesnt strip"....

And she's 13!!!

Loved the soundtrack but the movie was just meh. The girls were terrific but the movie just dragged. It was no Saturday Night Fever.

Robin Johnson could be Matt Damon’s older sister.

They look exactly alike

Guiding Light (1984)

It's worth it to see so many shots of Times Square in the late 70s.

Johnson was a terrible self conscious actress. She sucked!

[quote] I remember it and I Want to be Sedated became an earworm for me.

I recommend Rock “N” Roll High School, which has the Ramones singing that song live, along with some other of their best songs.

OT, but is it a Gogos’ song that goes[italic], “Stop the show, and we’ll go go go…”[/italic]

I have that bit stuck in my head : (

I CAN STILL PLAY 30!

Tim Curry discusses the movie 'Times Square' (1980) on The Robert Klein Radio Show (31st January 1981)

Robert Klein: That other part you played, in “Times Square”?

Tim Curry: Uh huh...

RK: That wasn't a big movie, I guess.

TC: No, it wasn't a big movie. It was kind of a very small movie.

RK: Would you agree that, once you do what you do, or did, in it well, then, you know, you can't help the rest. It's not very much an actor's manipulation that counts.

TC: Well, there's not very much that you can do about it. This was certainly a situation where it was edited away from practically everybody who was concerned in it. I mean, I had a few vague worries like I was playing a guy who was an alcoholic, took pills, every drug you could think of, and was having a nervous breakdown, and the scenes where this was established were removed from the film. And you thought what's the matter with this guy? You don't know he's just dropped three quaaludes, a red, a few uppers...

RK: So they don't show that and they just show you that way.

TC: No. No. ‘Guess he's a little weird. What's the matter with this guy?’

RK: ‘He must be nervous while acting.’

TC: The film was listed in the New York Magazine as co-starring ‘the repellent Tim Curry’ which was a wonderful listing.

RK: Really?

TC: Yes.

RK: Let's beat them up.

TC: Well, no, I thought it was quite a choice adjective, really.

RK: Repellent?

TC: Repellent. Yes. I'm hiring myself out as an exterminator. ‘Beat cockroaches with Times Square!’

📸: Tim Curry as Johnny LaGuardia in ‘Times Square’ (1980)

I think Robin Johnson was on a couple of soaps after this.

The highlight is probably the playing of that one Talking Heads song.

With the great acting teacher Herbert Berghof as Dr. Huber

As R7 said, Stigwood was hoping this movie would do for New Wave what his Saturday Night Fever did for disco. I love that he thought the best vehicle to accomplish this was a teenage lesbian Neverland among empty warehouses, junkies, and hookers.

I first saw this movie as an adult on TV one sleepless night and was absolutely delighted by it. In my eyes, it's a camp classic, a minor league Valley of the Dolls. I wish I had seen it as a teenager. At that age, I would have thought having a cute, schizophrenic boy in obsessive love with me and following him to the pits of hell was the most romantic thing in the world. And I would have loved the soundtrack, even the Sleez Sisters originals. "Damn Dog" lives on my playlists to this day.

The soundtrack - a pretty stellar New Wave primer, plus Marcy from Shakespeears Sister's duet with Robin Gibb, a pop gem that deserved higher than #50 - NEVER released on CD. OR DIGITAL. WTF?

The soundtrack had more hits than misses, but they played Desmond Child and Rouge's "The Night Was Not" twice in the movie, which makes me think they thought it was the single.

The Song Was Not.

We went to see this as teens because we knew Tim Curry’s name from Rocky Horror.

In general it was disappointing.

R25 It was available on CD.

R25 I stand corrected. The soundtrack was officially released in 1980 on vinyl, cassette, but not CD.

The CD in the link above is not an official release.

Ahh the Sleez Sisters....Who could forget those lyrics? Spic, ni**a, fa**ot, bum Your daughter IS one

They were the Patti Smiths of the teen set.

Robin Johnson’s acting was pretty bad. She acted really crazy (I understand that was her character, but still).

If I didn’t know better, her character could have been a young Eileen Wuroses.

Her face reminds me of Fairuza Balk a little bit. That brutal, slightly fucked up prettiness.

Johnson had zero sex appeal. Lesbian? She constantly jerks her head, licks the corners of her mouth. Every role she was the same. I have no idea how she got the job or the soap after it. Did Stigwood pick her? Why? What did they think she had going for her? She distracted from the movie. Everyone else in the film is fine. Johnson was the weak link that spoiled the movie.

I thought she got the best reviews, tho.

I just read the original NYT review for this movie from October 17, 1980.

Basically at the time they said the movie STINKS.