Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

This film represents the continuing saga of Eve Plumb and Leigh J. McCloskey from when McCloskey was stabbed while in a battle with Bo Hopkins in Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Alexander: The Other Side Of Dawn continues the story from McCloskey's point of view. While he's unconscious battling for his life we see flashbacks of how McCloskey arrived in Los Angeles. Essentially the kid wanted to be an artist and his redneck farmer/father didn't want any artistic types around and gave him leave to go. Mother Diana Douglas didn't put up a fuss.

Plumb returns to Arizona where she came from to finish high school and live down her sordid past. McCloskey keeps going on and does what he can to survive which includes taking up with closeted gay football star Alan Feinstein.

Unless you saw the first film you really don't know what is going on in the second in terms of character motivations. And the issue of gay for pay isn't really dealt with. And now with McCloskey telling psychologist Earl Holliman that he ought to be 'recruiting' him, the film would draw picket lines now.

Alexander: The Other Side Of Dawn keeps to the average standard set by its predecessor. It remains a curiosity today.

Though back in the day I thought and still think Leigh J. McCloskey was a hottie.

Shy, straight kid from Oklahoma who likes to draw and paint gets thrown out of his house, soon ending up in Los Angeles where he romances a pretty young prostitute while paying the bills as a male escort to women and men. Worthy TV-made continuation of the 1976 ratings blockbuster "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway" wasn't as big a success, partly due to a been-there-done-that feel but also perhaps because of the gay content--uncomfortable territory for 1977. The filmmakers work very hard to show us that Alexander (deep-voiced Leigh McCloskey, looking too old to be a minor) is indeed heterosexual; with lots of lip-locking between he and Dawn (returning Eve Plumb), we get the point early he's just using the gays as trade without all the speech-making. Alexander ends up living with a gay football player, who's just another stepping stone to this kid and one who seems to understand the situation (he quickly picks up another boy, though he isn't made out to be a villain). Earl Holliman gives probably the strongest performance in the movie, playing a (presumably gay) community center counselor who wants to clean up the streets--and Alex's life. John Erman directs in an unembarrassed, straightforward fashion, admirable for what is basically low-budget, exploitation television. The film refuses to paint the characters in shades of black or white, good guys or bad guys. Though the pseudo-happy ending doesn't quite ring true, and McCloskey's slack-jawed performance is disappointing, it's a decent attempt to scare impressionable kids away from Hollywood Boulevard.

Quite the daring thing for television in its day (it might have trouble getting off the ground at all in today's morally frigid climate!), it was nevertheless a disappointing sequel to "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenaged Runaway." The character of Alexander brought tears to the eye in "Dawn;" in his own film he just seems to be going through the motions, doing what was "expected" of a daring, groundbreaking '70s Gay television character.

What sort of crazy, backwards universe are we finding here? Jan from Brady Bunch is a hooker? Russel from Hamburger: The Motion Picture is into gay sex? This can't be right, but it is and it's actually a sequel to a better film called "Dawn" that focuses more on Jan......er......Dawn. Both films are basically sanitized, Hollywood Hogwash depictions of life on the streets but have enough grit to make them interesting in a Horatio Alger sort of way. Watchable enough and the good news is Alex later changes his name to Russel in the mid-1980's, graduates from Busterburger University and gets his own franchise. You might want to watch that movie instead.

This film is the sequel to "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway". This original made for TV movie was pretty shocking as America got to see Eve Plumb (from "The Brady Bunch") playing a prostitute! Pretty steamy stuff for the 1970s. Well, the character is back but plays second fiddle to Alexander (Leigh McCloskey)...her love interest who also is a prostitute who mostly services men...though he insists that he's not gay (and they never mention that he's most likely bisexual).

Like the first movie, this one is HIGHLY sanitized because otherwise they never would have allowed it to be shown on TV. So, you never really see Alexander prostituting himself and the film jumps too quickly from Alexander being homeless to sleeping with folks for profit. It basically talks around what is happening. Additionally, McCloskey and Plumb look so whitebread and so pretty that it is hard to imagine either being prostitutes. As a result, instead of being shocking it comes off as a bit silly. Additionally, the film feels very episodic and disjoint...perhaps due to some editing to please the network. Because of this, it's really not that good a movie BUT it's also a groundbreaking and important film due to its subject matter...and for that reason folks might wanna give it a look.