The original 1986 VHS release of "Lovedolls Superstar" on SSTv

"Lovedolls Superstar"

Starring Jennifer Schwartz, Steve McDonald, Janet Housden,

Cheetah Punkerton (Kim Pilkington), Jeff McDonald, & Tracy Lea

Special Guest Appearances by Vicki Peterson & Jello Biafra

Executive Producer Jordan Schwartz

Photographed, Edited, & Directed by David Markey

"Lovedolls Superstar" was produced from the profits of "Desperate Teenage Lovedolls" by the collective We Got Power Films (which at the time was David Markey, Jordan & Jennifer Schwartz, and Jeff & Steve McDonald.) The original version was released in 1986 on VHS by SST for the exhorborant price of $47.00  (Studio movies available on VHS at the time were retailing at an average of $80.00 per title.)  Needless to say only about 400 were originally sold, at leat according to the "creative accounting" of the notoriously shifty SST Records.  We Got Power Films eventually made the film available on VHS for the more reasonable $22.50.  VHS were bulky, and did not have the instant marketability (and low price) of DVD's, nor did they have the bonus features which are now considered commonplace on DVD.

This original version of the film was produced by taking the Super-8 sound film to the film transfer house, transfering the rough footage to 3 1/4" inch pnuematic video tapes, which were then edited down on a tapt-to-tape edit system.  The end result meant losing several generations of video tape, yeilding a flickering, washed out mess of a picture. Super-8 film transfers themselves were dodgy at best in this era, using a chain pulled projector beaming into a video camera (which were also technically no where near what home consumer cameras are today.)  The audio was not much better, with the music source coming from casette and the lower than lo-fi super-8 magnetic sound stripe located on the edge of the Super 8 mm film gauge which recorded the audio, often capturing the shutter sound of the Super-8 camera.  Those camera's were loud!

This said, it was a miracle the film was available commercially (however under-underground), and was seen at all.  All this techincal limitation stuff seemed to take a back seat to the film itself.  It did not matter to the people buying it that the film did not look or sound like a Hollywood movie.  This was Anti-Hollywood, High-Art, or at least a post punk movie to watch while you were high. The film was accompanied (and aided, no doubt) by a hot soundtrack LP and a (brand new format at the time) CD featuring the cream of the crop of post-punk US; Black Flag (of course), Dead Kennedys (this was the only DK's appearance on SST), Sonic Youth (who were signed to SST at the time), as were the Meat Puppets and the rest of the bands on the compilation, save for Redd Kross, The Lovedolls (who were now a "real" band), and Anarchy 6. The scene featuring Sky "Sunlight" Saxon (of the Seeds) was cut from the SSTv version of "Lovedolls Superstar", due to the fact Saxon was freaked out by what he perceived as "Charles Manson worshipping" going on at SST at the time.  He was restored, along with the picture and sound, for the "Lovedolls Superstar Fully Realized" dvd in 2004.