Streets of Fire

[Mr. Sin]

Anybody seen this film? It's basically a very 'cult' film, by Walter Hill, also known for The Warriors, 48 hours and the Alien series. It features Michael Pare, otherwise best known for other 'cult' films such as Eddie and the Cruisers and the sci-fi time travel film Philadelphia Experiment. More famous cast members include Diane Lane (The love interest), Rick Moranis (The romantic rival) and William Dafoe (As the villain). Bill Paxton (Aliens, Big Love) also has a small role as a bartender, and
Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Who would show up in a Trek quest role) as well.

Like "The Warriors", it's sort of set in a semi-mythical setting, a sort of mishmash of the 50s/60s and the 80s. There's a lot of songs in the film: The popular " I can dream about you", the Meatloafish "Nowhere Fast" (Which was later covered by Meatloaf, although with slightly different lyrics and "Sung" in the film by Diane Lane's character but dubbed over by Laurie Seargent) The Stevie Nicks penned "Sorceror" and a few others.


Streets of Fire, although not a huge hit in the USA, did very well in Japan, and heavily influenced the Japanese animated video series "Bubblegum Crisis" in which one of the main characters is a pop singer clearly modeled after the Diane Lane character, and some of the J-pop songs are *very* similar in tone to "Nowhere Fast" and other songs from the film....

Any fans?

 

[J.T.B.]

^ I remember it was not a bad movie, not great but kind of fun. The best part is seeing LA roots-rock legends the Blasters doing "One Bad Stud."

--Justin

 

[sojourner]

MMMmmmmm, Diane Lane.

It was very cyberpunk-ish with it's mix of guns and rock music.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Diane Lane actually recorded her own vocals for the soundtrack, and she showed a clip of her work on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1983 (nearly a year before the film was released). The clip showed her singing "Sorcerer" in a scene from Streets of Fire. I've seen the clip, and she wasn't bad at all. Alas, the people making the film wanted a better singer. Diane's vocals were ultimately scrapped, and some anonymous studio singer was brought in to sing her parts.

Several music videos were made to promote the movie. My favorite is "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young." Diane is pure dynamite in this one--even though it isn't her voice that we hear. Universal should have included the videos as special features on the DVD.