Writer. Editor. Podcaster. Cat lover.
Marianne Faithfull died a week ago at the age of 78. Another intimidatingly cool icon taken off the board. What first came to my mind when I heard the news wasn’t the achingly sad ‘Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ or the intoxicating clash on ‘Broken English’ of Faithfull’s raw vocals and the music’s cold, insistent tech pulse (was it on the soundtrack of Chris Petit’s RADIO ON?* Feels like it was made to play while one cruises the brutalist motorways of early ‘80s UK dystopia) or even THE GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE (still unwatched by me — I snatched it off Karagarga in my ongoing hunt for How To Be Hip cheat codes, and didn’t watch it when Alain Delon died; I really should now that its other star has shuffled off this mortal coil).
Instead, what I heard in my head was ‘Love Hates’, a very produced synth assault of a song – with Faithfull’s voice in full evil-sorceress bloom – that plays over the opening sequence of TUFF TURF, in which our preppy protagonist Morgan Hiller, played by James Spader, makes riding the shadowy, neon-streaked streets of L.A. on his ten-speed seem like the sleekest fucking thing a young man could do in this life.
‘Love Hates’ is barely a footnote in Faithfull’s career but it’s number one in my heart because back in ‘85 I watched TUFF TURF a lot. A lot. Maybe too much. There were certainly teen movies of higher quality available to view (or were there? Wonder how CAN’T BUY ME LOVE plays these days. Maybe about as well as REVENGE OF THE NERDS), and probably better cultural and stylistic influences for a young man caught in the churn of adolescence, probably better role models than my main man Morgan. But in the Brat Pack ‘80s, I was more Anthony Michael Hall than Judd Nelson when playing the ‘Which BREAKFAST CLUB character are you?’ quiz, and borrowing the persona of big-screen brooders like Sean Penn or Matt Dillon seemed unrealistic for one thing, downright ridiculous for another.
Spader seemed cut from a different cloth than other young stars of the era, however, which was probably why I responded to him. He seemed crisp and cultured rather than a Brando-esque mumbler, white-collar rather than blue, which appealed to an indoor kid like me. Until SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE (can’t say I’m a fan of that Oxford comma, but what Soderbergh wants…) reoriented his career direction, he was typecast as poisonous preppies or youthful psychopaths (I’m very partial to his bleach-blond, Southern-fried sicko in THE NEW KIDS, aka STRIKING BACK, also unleashed in ‘85). And there are hints of that malevolence in Morgan, which adds a little spice to a character who’s kind of vanilla. Transplanted to the mean streets of L.A. from tony Connecticut after the family’s real estate biz went bust, he’s a semi-frustrated, slightly hot-tempered misfit in this new milieu — a bad boy in boat shoes.
His mum’s kind of a snob but not wholly unsympathetic; you can tell she really misses her old East Coast lifestyle. And Dad’s a can-do kind of guy who doesn’t seem to be taking the demise of his business too badly — he’s OK driving the graveyard shift as a cabbie till he gets back on his feet, and he’ll dole out sage advice (“Life’s not a problem to be solved, it’s an adventure to be lived!”) to his ne’er-do-well kid.
And hey, Morgan’s got a swift pushbike, one of those leather jackets with a vaguely exotic design on the back, a pair of Chekhov’s dart guns introduced in the first act (could you hit two cockroaches crawling up your bedroom wall? Cooler than Chow Yun-fat, this guy!) and a pretty well-aligned moral compass, as he demonstrates when he foils a mugging by the local toughs — the eponymous ‘Tuffs’ — by spraying beer in the faces of the miscreants. (“Rain from heaven!” laughs Morgan during the drive-by — I ask you, how many teen movies would throw in a STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE shoutout?)
That ‘vaguely exotic design’ on Morgan’s coat? It’s apparently a ‘blood chit’ – in case they crash-landed in enemy territory, Allied airmen would have Chinese-language script on their jackets saying something like ‘reward for safe haven’ alongside their name, rank and blood type in Japanese.
TUFF TURF’s plot is boilerplate — already in the Tuffs’ bad books for his amateur vigilantism, Morgan makes the situation even stickier by falling for Frankie Croyden (Kim Richards, who’s so good here one wishes for a SLIDING DOORS moment where she doesn’t become a Real Housewife of somewhere or other), the girlfriend of top Tuff Nick Hauser (Paul Mones, intense) — but the filigree is fun, kicking off with Morgan quickly finding a new BFF in wise-cracking, fast-talking Jimmy Parker, played with antic energy that is 100% natural, absolutely zero chemical enhancement, by Robert Downey (who wasn’t tacking on the Jr at this stage of the game). While part of me wanted to be streetwise/sophisticated Morgan Hiller, an equal share of my soul yearned to have Jimmy’s goofy, slippery, exuberant charisma. Spader. RDJ. Always you wrestle inside me.
Always you will.
From there, it’s youthful hijinks — a suspiciously well-choreographed dance party at the warehouse, with Jimmy as the drummer for The Jim Carroll Band! Our young heroes crash a posh country club soiree and win over the stiffs with ludicrous European accents (from RDJ, natch) and uninhibited blowjob advice (from Jimmy’s adorably trashy/horny girlfriend, played by REPO MAN’s bubbly Olivia Barash)! — interspersed with semi-impactful violence as the rivalry between Morgan and Nick heats up (TUFF TURF got an R-rating here in Australia, restricting it to viewers over 18. Luckily, my video store clerk was open-minded, generous or just plain inattentive).
Would you believe, the hero of TUFF TURF.
TUFF TURF was a product of New World Pictures, not long after Roger Corman had sold up but the budgets remained as tight as ever. However, producer Donald P. Borchers (the man behind another of my favourite New World joints, VAMP) and director Fritz Kiersch make it look sharp and run smooth — the dialogue by screenwriter Jette Rinck shows flashes of wit (when Jimmy tries to warn Morgan off his pursuit of Frankie by saying “She belongs to Nick”, Morgan dryly replies “C’mon, Jimmy, Lincoln freed the slaves”), and there is solid talent below the line, with much respect due cinematographer Willy Kurant, who shot both Masculin feminin for Jean-Luc Godard and The Incredible Melting Man for…the director of The Incredible Melting Man**.
Does it all work? Oh no. To this day, I will skip the scene where Spader, his singing voice dubbed, goes all ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ and serenades Frankie with a power ballad at the country club, and I imagine after you see it once you will do likewise. And let’s be honest. the title is dreadful. We’re not supposed to take the Tuffs all that seriously (one of Nick’s fellow Tuffs mocks their leader’s dance moves behind his back; when the gang tries to jump Morgan’s dad, he basically knocks their dicks in the dirt until Nick pulls a pistol), and putting their name in the title diminishes the movie’s unique mix of fizz and grit.
It’s a catchy title, sure, but you’ve got your work cut out convincing potential converts to the cause that a movie called TUFF TURF is actually worth almost two hours of their wild and precious life — which it is. Still, this was New World, that actually rebranded HEATHERS as LETHAL ATTRACTION for a minute or two before sanity prevailed. There’s a chance if TUFF TURF was called NEW KID or CITY STREETS or something equally taupe, I may never have plucked it from the shelves four fucking decades ago. And what kind of person would I be now if I hadn’t?
Yeah, they actually tried this.
*nope, it wasn’t
**William Sachs! Like I’m gonna diss the maker of Galaxina and Van Nuys Blvd!