Teenage Runaway

Though grinding out footage was the name of the game in porn's now over-glamorized (through nostalgia) '70s Golden Age, there were ambitious efforts as well. TEENAGE RUNAWAY coulda been a contender, but the potentially interesting movie reverts to sex filler and self-destructs.

I'm reviewing the high quality (made from a nice print) DVD reissue by Alpha Blue Archives. By comparison, the 6-minutes shorter SWV DVD-R edition titled RUN CHICK RUN (on Vol. 195 of the Dragon Art Theatre series) has all the scenes included, but loses running time due to frequent splices within the sex scenes.

Film features the stars of PLAY ONLY FOR ME: Dianne Galke, Desiree West, John Seeman and Joey Silvera. Probably both Frisco-set films were shot around the same time.

After an arousing opening sex scene of Angela (Galke) and her unidentified boyfriend, he throws her out on the street, tired of her. This callous prologue sets the viewer up for rough trade. After some nighttime shots of Angela out on the street, seeming to pick up a guy under a street lamp with the "gotta light?" routine, Angela emerges in a forest where Bud (Silvera) and his pal (Seeman) rape her in long, drawn-out scene that plays unsubtly on male rape fantasies, assumed to be harbored by the adult theater audience. This scene is unsettling, but turns out to be another who-cares? segment in the overall scheme of this opus.

Turns out Angela has arrived at a desolate, remote spot called Land's End, and my hopes were (foolishly) up for some significance. But at this point the film does a complete 180 and virtually abandons Angela's story, belying both of the film's titles. Instead, a sympathetic Lila (West) is introduced, and the rest of the movie is devoted to her -having sex with Silvera, Seeman and black actor Dashile Miguele. The fans aren't cheated - West is the most beautiful black porn actress of the '70s, but the arbitrary dropping of storyline is irritating.

Quick wrap-up has Angela suddenly running away from this makeshift commune at film's end, with Lila wistfully gazing after her, unable to intervene, and "That's All Folks!".

Film benefits immensely from an outstanding jazz score, of pirated music. Standing out are several tracks (minus saxophonist Joe Henderson) from Miroslav Vitous's classic 1969 LP "Infinite Search", better known under its reissue title "Mountain in the Clouds". The bass player's distinctive sound features a once-in-a-lifetime lineup: Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Joe Chambers and Jack DeJohnette, delivering the best of the jazz fusion movement of the time pioneered by Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul and those artists appearing here.

The quality of the exterior cinematography including scenic shots on a lonely, cold-looking beach implies this might have become a "real" film and not just the porn filler that eventually results. Whether the anonymous filmmakers had some nascent talent and were frustrated at having to work in this bottom-rung level of the film industry or were just careless, is of no importance -the artifact they left behind is disappointing. I enjoyed seeing both beautiful leading ladies in action, but some silent loops of them would have served the same purpose.