Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

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.

Eve Plumb in an effort to get away from her image of Jan Brady, middle sister with Marcia issues, on the Brady Bunch took a part as far as you can get from the G-rated Brady family. She plays Dawn Wetherby who ran away from home because of problems simply never contemplated in the Brady household.

Getting to the mean streets of Los Angeles she makes three acquaintances who change her life, fellow teen runaway Leigh J. McCloskey, social worker Georg Stanford Brown and bottom feeding pimp Bo Hopkins. In this made for TV movie, a big ratings winner back in the day it all works out pretty much as it's supposed to.

Not that this a great film, it's just average, but people tuned into this one to see Jan Brady in a hooker outfit more than anything else. This was not the end of the saga of Leigh and Eve. A sequel was made next year with McCloskey the protagonist showing him earning a living on the streets any which way he could.

Where was Marcia when you needed her?

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.

This movie portrays the life of a teenage runaway. Fortunately, the outcome of this made for tv movie is a positive one. It does show however, that those teens who wish to 'make it big in hollywood' does no necessarily end up that way. Prostitution and disease is a reality that must be stressed to teens.

I remember seeing this awhile ago, and seeing Eve Plumb, fresh from playing Jan on the Brady Bunch, playing a teen runaway. She really sheds her Brady Bunch persona big time. All credit to the production team for the level of authenticity that permeates from this 70s flick.