STREETS OF FIRE (1983) Original production artwork

[Los Angeles: Universal Pictures, 1983]. From the estate of James Allen, the film’s art director.

– Original artwork, 27 9/16 x 15 5/8″ in colored pencil and ink titled “Ardmore Police Dept. Streets of Fire”, signed and dated “James Allen ’83”.

– Original artwork in pencil and ink on vellum measuring 21 x 10 1/2″ (54 x 27 cm). A logo for “Road Masters Chelsea”, a gang which threaten Reva’s (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) diner, but whom her brother Cody (Michael Paré) makes fast work of.

– Three pieces of artwork (color photos printed on art paper of Allen’s original designs) ranging in size from 20 x 12 1/2″ (51 x 32 cm) to 24 x 20″ (61 x 51 cm). These are definitely unique, one of a kind pieces, since Allen had only one of each printed for his internal archive.

“Tonight is What it Means to Be Young” is the glorious anthem with which the film begins and ends in Walter Hill’s great, anarchic rock-and-roll epic. The film at the time garnered little critical or popular attention, but it is now recognized as one of the classics of 80s Hollywood cinema (a recent 70mm Los Angeles screening at the American Cinematheque, which I attended, was a massive success with an audience of mostly people who had not even been born in 1984, when the film was released).

Streets of Fire is an action crime neo-noir film directed by Walter Hill, from a screenplay by Hill and Larry Gross. Described on the poster and in the opening credits as “A Rock & Roll Fable”, the film combines elements of the automobile culture and music from the 1950s with the fashion style and sociology of the 1980s. Starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, E. G. Daily and Bill Paxton, the film follows ex-soldiers Tom Cody (Paré) and McCoy (Madigan) as they embark on a mission to rescue Cody’s ex-girlfriend Ellen Aim (Lane), who was kidnapped by Raven Shaddock (Dafoe), the leader of an outlaw motorcycle gang called The Bombers. (Wikipedia)