Rock & Rule (1983)

director Clive A. Smith
music Deborah Harry, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Cheap Trick, Earth Wind and Fire
starring (voice) Catherine O’Hara

Ever get a song stuck in your head? When Debbie Harry supplied her talents for the underwhelming animated musical Rock & Rule, she created a song which, so the plot of the film goes, allows an aging popstar wizard to raise a demon at his farewell concert. Mok, a cross between David Bowie and Mick Jagger, kidnaps Harry’s character Angel and forces her to sing a lovesong so repetitive, so radio-friendly, that the demon must climb up from the netherhell to silence it.

Although the film never got much play outside Canada, the circulation of bootleg tapes kept Rock & Rule a cult favorite of animation fans for years before finally being released on DVD in 2005. Harry always hoped for an original soundtrack album to be released which would feature her song and announce her new solo career outside of Blondie. The soundtrack is a veritable who’s-who of early 80’s recording artists all providing original songs. Lou Reed and Iggy Pop both have turns at Mok giving him a powerful glam-rock sound. CheapTrick supplies the new wave counterpart to Harry as the music and singing voices for Angel’s hapless bandmates, who are shoved to the side when she enters Mok’s world of rollerskating henchmen, luxury airships, and concerts where a supernatural deathtoll boosts his record sales.

Rock & Rule misses the mark more than it hits, but it’s a movie you remember and it actually gets better the more you watch it. Some clever moments with Mok get buried in a confusing script that’s pulled in too many directions, but there are flashes of brilliance as Lou Reed’s music videos lets Mok’s ego shine. The romance between Angel and her boyfriend Omar is just icky. Can she nurture him into a safe place where he doesn’t feel threatened by her career? Blech. That’s exactly the kind of un-feminism that gets you tied to an altar and sacrificed at the mouth of hell. Like the Biblical Eve before her, Angel is seduced by evil and unleashes disaster on the world, but with a loving man at her side they turn the song into a duet, and their harmony drives the demon back. Eeeewwwwww.

Without the pop soundtrack Rock & Rule would have been forgotten. The Ralph Bakshi-wannabe artwork of nuked wastelands and the mutant animal-people were already out of style by its 1984 release date. To be honest so was the soundtrack which was A-list three years earlier when production started, but animated films take years to make and pop songs just don’t live that long. The film was never released in the US, and the original soundtrack never happened.

Harry later re-recorded Angel’s song “Send Love Through” with new lyrics, calling it “Maybe for Sure” on her solo album Deaf,Dumb,&Blonde. It’s still an infectious anthem of rising keys, a defiant power ballad that stirs all sorts of love is cool feelings in you. A feelgood song you hum for days without knowing any of the words…. Maybe it got stuck her head.