I remember this movie when it was released in 1983 and it just made me roll my eyes due to its title…Valley Girl. Hollywood was trying to cash in on a dead fad created by Zappa’s 1982 hit single but by now, no one wanted anything to do with the exaggerated lingo or accent of what alleged came from LA’s San Fernando Valley. The phrases were and are still shorthand for letting audiences know, Hey! It’s like, the early Eighties…like, ya’ know. If you’ve seen the poster, it didn’t help neither. The woman standing in front of Nic Cage isn’t Deborah Foreman or at least the wardrobe is completely off.
Since Alamo Drafthouse chose to screen this in preparation and as a tutorial for Bottoms, I decided to check it out. See what was all the fuss and it was endorsed by a fellow Gen Xer I respect, Director/Writer Karyn Kusama via her contribution to Trailers From Hell. If she was invited a decade ago by Josh Olson and Joe Dante to talk about this, then I’m sold.
The short version of the plot: Julie and her high school friends live the good life in the San Fernando Valley. They go shopping at the local mall, they gossip about school, music and boys, and they enjoy going to the beach. As the story begins, Julie dumps her beau Tommy because he’s been neglecting her and she lets him know, she can do better. It seems this isn’t completely true as the boy Julie has her eyes on ignores her at a party. Meanwhile, a pair of Hollywood-based “punk rockers” (code for poor kids) called Randy and Fred crash the shindig; Fred overheard where it was happening when Julie’s friends Stacey and Loryn discussed it. Randy and Julie have sparks but the snooty Valley boys led by Tommy kick the “punkers” out.
Julie remains intrigued and through the bulk of the film, she dates Randy while seeing his side of LA, namely the Sunset Strip of the late Seventies and early Eighties when LA’s punk scene (X, The Dickies) was being replaced by New Wave (Oingo Boingo, Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Go Go’s). Julie’s parents are cool. They’re Hippies who run a health-food store and restaurant.
Then Julie is cajoled into choosing between her friends or Randy via her friends. She goes with the friends obviously so Valley can have a second montage of Randy trying to win her back through romantic gestures; the rude movie usher was my favorite. It culminates at the magical moment most high-school flicks do…the Prom! You’ll have to see for yourself at this point to see who Julie decides to do the horizontal mambo with at a pricey hotel as per the mythical tradition.
I found myself liking Valley more than I expected. It’s not the story or how a woman got to be the director, an incredibly rare event in the Eighties. For me, it’s the details! Sure the movie is failing to cash in on a dead fad yet you’re seeing the LA the world has lost through gentrification. The clothes are authentic, especially with the Valley kids. Back then, kids didn’t always wear printed T-shirts, we wore knit shirts with collars at school, parties and even when playing a pick-up game of touch football. If you were wealthy, you had a logo on the chest, usually an alligator or polo player. Randy and Fred would be called punk rock kids too; they put colors in their hair! The term New Waver would be more accurate but it wasn’t widely used by the general public. Thankfully the Vally lingo and slang spoken by the characters was conservatively used keeping everyone from being cartoonish. The music in the background was genuine as well; you’re getting hear what would be on the radio or parties for this demographic. Not some focus-group driven crap with a song from every possible genre. Valley was before Hollywood began to go overboard on tying soundtracks to movies and due to its sincerity, Valley had a long, sought-out, out-of-print soundtrack requiring Rhino/Shout to rescue.
Now its flaws are mostly the standard matters we continue to see in Hollywood’s take on teen life alongside the standard Eighties flourishes to get an R rating, thus, teen boys will want to see it. All the actors are easily in their early twenties or older, I have a hypothesis why. There’s also a couple gratuitous scenes with bare boobs; one would be classified as attempted date rape now; and a The Graduate subplot to pad for time. None are enough to kill my enjoyment. The core elements held up, namely, getting to see Nic Cage trying to act, before he became the living cartoon we love in Renfield and Kick Ass.
Sadly, while researching Valley, namely seeing what happened to the other actors besides Cage and EG Daily; some assholes in 2020 released a PG-13 musical remake. UGH! UGH! They definitely hired the amateurs who did the costumes for the overrated and not funny The Wedding Singer. From the stills on imdb.com you can tell they just grabbed anything that said Eighties on it despite Madonna’s first look wasn’t widespread until 1984. Despite other horrors I could list, we can thank COVID-19 for killing its larger release in theaters. Should you spot it on streaming, avoid at all costs, seek out the original!
Oh, if you overhear a Mill or Gen Zer tsk tsking some parts, especially Josie Cotton singing “Johnny, Are You Queer?” Tell them to take a chill pill and shut the fuck up.
Alamo Extras:
- Ads for Palais Royal clothes, Strawberry Shortcake toys, Vincent Price for Cousins sandwiches (Milwaukee!), JEM the rock star doll, the Record Bar record store, Wild Irish Rose Wine, Miracle Whip using Devo’s “Whip It”, Megamania video game starring the Tubes, Hardee’s saying they have Ghostbusters 2 glasses, Timex Watches, Macintosh Computers and Alan Alda showing off an Atari computer.
- Tiffany’s video for “I Think We’re Alone Now,”; Nolan Thomas’ “Little Brother.”
- Cyndi Lauper’s long version of the Goonies music video she did with the WWE wrestlers. It had a storyline similar to the movie, somebody was buying out her family’s gas station.
- A breakdancer troupe performing a series of amazing and standard moves.