Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

I have to admit, I'm rather shocked by the other comments left for this movie. I watched it on video last night, and greatly enjoyed it, but it's by no means a "great film."

Eve Plumb's acting is truly atrocious. I never really paid attention to her acting on the Brady Bunch, but she's absolutely wretched in this movie, (in an oh-so-enjoyable way.) The dialogue is also hilariously bad. And, any movie that has a midget in the opening few minutes is a winner in my book.

Yes, this is definitely a camp classic. Worth seeking out for fans of bad movies.

Great stuff! It's a pity this movie and its sequel - 'Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn' are not available on video - (Perhaps we could lobby the studio!) Eve Plumb and Leigh McCloskey (where are they now?) are superb in the central roles. I couldn't imagine a successful remake of these movies as the naivety of the teenagers just wouldn't be credible in the 21st Century - or would it? Incidentally, I seem to recall a Disney movie entitled 'Blind Sunday' circa 1976, which featured Leigh McCloskey. His character was, in some ways, a precurser to the character of Alexander.

Young girls who, run away from home, don't see danger. Pimps hang out in bus stations and airports, to catch these young girls, and lure them into prostitution. The young guy, who befriended her, gave her good advice to go back home. Even the Sheriff took Dawn, to the morgue and tried to convince her, that prostitution is dangerous. I would recommend, this movie to all teenagers. Church groups and Police departments, should use this movie, as an example, to our youth.

Eve Plumb gives a soft but rather touching performance as a naive teen from the sticks who ends up working the Hollywood Boulevard. I loved it when Dawn and her troubled roommate Alexander finally get electricity to their dump ("Bottled sunlight", Dawn says), and the brief scenes where Alexander is tempted by his gift-giving gay customers are handled with surprising resonance and taste. It's not an especially campy movie, despite the glitter rock songs (The Runaways screaming "Cherry Bomb!") and the presence of a Brady Buncher playing a prostitute. Rather, the film has good location work, interesting characters and editing. It would be easy to tag the film as TV-styled exploitation, yet it has its heart in the right place. In its day, this was a bigger ratings winner than Linda Blair's "Sarah T.: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic" which started fresh a timeworn cycle: the teens-in-trouble genre.

Although a bit tame by today's standards, "Dawn" was quite the thing when it came out. In my opinion, the most memorable character is not Dawn, herself, but her hustler friend Alexander, played by Leigh J. McCloskey, whose performance was so deeply moving that he scored a sequel of his own: "Alexander: the Other Side of Dawn" (1977) (TV). Unfortunately, the sequel wasn't up to the original when it came to presenting Alexander. This was a landmark movie to many of its audience members, some of whom I know can STILL remember its EXACT title, a quarter century later; such was its impact on the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate generation.