Lech Kowalski made a documentary called Story of a Junkie, which was a journey through the filthy, junkie littered and violent streets of NYC in the early eighties with a charismatic heroin addict called John Spacely ( Who's in this documentary also ) acting as our guide. The similarities with that film and this one are many especially the sense of going on a journey. In Story of a Junkie we go on a journey with John to score smack, here the journey is Johhny Thunders life, starting with elderly family and friends recollecting what kind of kid he was growing up in Brooklyn through to his early notoriety with the amazing New York Dolls, then onto the lesser successful but equally important Heartbreakers and Eighties solo work. Along the way we meet an array of groupies, dealers, unscrupulous managers with sad, funny and at times pathetic memories of their time with J. Thunders. Johhny himself isn't interviewed, which is by far this documentary's weakest point although not the only one. Editing is the another main weak point with several ridiculous examples, one being the interview with a barely awake drunk French band member and his mother which becomes impossible to understand, however there is a lot of live footage here and much of it is priceless especially the New york Dolls and Heartbreakers stuff on the other hand this being a journey with an end ( Johhny's Death ) It becomes truly grim as we move into the late eighties and Johhny frankly looked appalling with the sickest most abused body that anyone would pay money to see and the final still photographs of him in Bangkok in the early nineties are just frightening. It's the life of J.Thunders and it isn't the most pleasant of trips but if you've gotten here and are reading this then you probably want to take it too. RIP John ( Arthur Kane, Jerry Nolan & John Spacely too )
