It takes a real helping of celebrity chutzpah for Dakota Fanning to cover a tune like the Runaways' "California Paradise," a sarcastic ode to Hollywood street urchin life. For Fanning and film cohort Kristen Stewart, their night life equivalent probably involves dinner at the West Hollywood Urth Caffe followed by (non-alcoholic) cocktails at Drai's. But on the soundtrack to "The Runaways," their updated takes on the scruffy oeuvre of Curie, Jett and company feel tossed off in a way the original Runaways might appreciate.

Like her fellow platinum-tressed actress-turned-rocker Taylor Momsen, Fanning takes her vocal cues from Courtney Love's gnarled howl. But on record, Fanning sounds absolutely true to her motivation for making this soundtrack: She's a beautiful, well-paid actress playing the part of a beautiful, famous rock star playing the character of a broke L.A. punk vixen. But this town is built on pretty people dressing down, and the deep irony of her musical role as Curie is unexpectedly on target given myth-building source material such as  "Dead End Justice" and "Cherry Bomb."

Stewart takes a passenger-seat role here, but her deeper register is a worthy compliment in this very silly formula. The rest of the soundtrack is essential but obvious '70s sleaze-rock fare, including the Stooges and Bowie, and MC5.

-- August Brown

 Various Artists

' "The Runaways" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'

(Atlantic Records)

Two stars

 
There are different accounts as to what happened behind closed doors at Runaways rehearsals. The punk-leaning Runaways had a brief, crash-and-burn history in the mid- to late '70s, and the upcoming film based on the story of the all-female band, which opens March 19 in Los Angeles, will present a Hollywood version of that history.

But regardless of who's doing the telling, one point that seems widely agreed upon is this: The band's onetime manager, Kim Fowley, is crazy. Fowley doesn't wholly dispute his image. "I'm the psycho Svengali," he said to Pop & Hiss earlier this week. "But I was just trying to make a living."

In the film, in which "Twilight" vet Kristen Stewart gets a rock 'n' roll makeover as Joan Jett, Fowley is played by Michael Shannon, a foulmouthed impresario who isn't above throwing dog excrement at the teenage band he managed. 

"The Runaways" isn't the first film about the group. A 2004 documentary titled "Edgeplay," written and directed by former band member Victory Tischler-Blue (known as Vicki Blue in her days as the Runaways'  bassist), levied multiple allegations of verbal and borderline sexual abuse toward Fowley. 

The upcoming film "The Runaways" is itself based on a book, "Neon Angel," by the band's singer, Cherie Currie, which presents Fowley as aggressive and domineering in relation to the band he helped form. Fowley famously referred to the group as "sex kittens" and "jail-bait rock," and it's been said that he called the band members "dog meat" to their faces. It should also be added that Jett and Curie weren't old enough to vote when the Runaways cut its self-titled debut in 1976. 

"Kim told my mother that I was going to be a rock star," Currie is quoted as saying in the 2001 book "We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk." "That I was going to be the next Bowie, the next this and that. How could you refuse? Within two weeks, he had a deal with Mercury Records ... two weeks after my fifteenth birthday."

Lead guitarist and vocalist Lita Ford, who has publicly distanced herself from the film, is quoted in "The Neutron Bomb," by Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen, as saying that Fowley's name-calling eventually "became pretty funny," and Jett herself downplays the tenseness of the situation. Currie, however, adds, "We were lower than dirt -- that's how he made us feel. That's how he kept control over us."

Fowley, 70 and still working today on another all-girl project dubbed Black Room Doom, shrugs it all off. "There wasn’t AIDS. There were no computers. There was no digital marketing. It was a totally different time. There was no political correctness. Enjoy the history."

Credited with introducing the band members, and often working as their producer and co-writer, Fowley didn't tour with the band, and ultimately acrimoniously split from them. He talks to Pop & Hiss about "The Runaways" below.