For all the cloyingly confessional “Behind the Music” documentaries to come down the pike, one band’s story remains untold — that of the seminal 1970s band, The Runaways. The first all-girl band to tour the world playing loud, in-your-face arena rock, The Runaways embodied the spirit of teenage despair, drug use and unbridled sexuality, butting heads with a rock patriarchy dominated by Ted Nugent and Rush. The Runaways spawned the careers of Joan Jett and Lita Ford, inspiring artists such as the Go-Go’s, Le Tigre, The Donnas, Courtney Love, the Toilet Boys and a generation of other upstarts.

Though Jett has declined numerous invitations to tell the band’s story to VH-1, a documentary on the self-proclaimed “Queens of Noise” does exist, and it’s an edgy, artful and intense work — having even received an endorsement from producer Rob Reiner.

So why hasn’t it been released?

It’s a complicated story — one filmmaker and former Runaways bassist Victory Tischler-Blue shared with the Gay and Lesbian Times earlier this year at her home in Palm Springs, along with a screening of her film, Edgeplay.

In 1977, 17-year-old Tischler-Blue (then Vicki Blue) became the third bassist to join The Runaways, replacing Jackie Fox, who went on to graduate from Harvard Law School (Fox currently serves as Tischler-Blue’s attorney on the project). Other band members included vocalist Cherie Currie (who went on to star in the film Foxes opposite Jodie Foster), drummer Sandy West and short-lived bassist Michael Steele (currently a member of The Bangles).

After The Runaways called it quits in ’79, Tischler-Blue eventually found herself in TV and film production, working on shows like “Entertainment Tonight” and “Cops.” Running across a bunch of old live footage of The Runaways, Tischler-Blue decided to put together a video for her fellow band-mates. However, soon into the project she realized she was onto something much larger.

Edgeplay is a composite of footage and interviews with various band members, spliced together with a discordant, industrial ambiance reminiscent of the work of David Carson, who produced videos for Nine Inch Nails’ CD The Fragile.

The material in Edgeplay is heavy, documenting an industry that took five naïve teenage girls and screwed them in every conceivable way. However, among the melancholy and bitter ruminations, one Runaway is noticeably AWOL: Joan Jett. The rocker who peaked in the early ‘80s with “I Love Rock and Roll” and currently packs the occasional Pride festival, fair or bingo hall, Jett backed out of a much-hyped Runaways reunion a few years ago. As Tischler-Blue tells it, Jett and her notorious diva demands not only killed the Runaways reunion, but she and manager Kenny Laguna are now on a crusade to prevent Edgeplay from being released. According to Tischler-Blue, Jett and Laguna have pulled legal strings to prevent any Runaways songs from inclusion in the film.

Tischler-Blue was a few years into the project when Jett’s manager finally responded to her inquiry for Jett to participate (Tischler-Blue had already filmed the other band members). “He was calling and he goes, ‘Well, we want to come out and see all 48 hours of the raw footage — tomorrow!’” Tischler-Blue recalled. “I’m like, ‘No, you can’t do that because things are said [by the other band members], you know, just joking.’… It wouldn’t be fair…. I had a rough cut and I said, ‘Come on out for the rough cut and they’re like, ‘Forget it, we want to see everything.’ … I never heard from them again…. That was about a year and a half ago.”

Though the process of getting approval to use the Runaways music in the film was time consuming, once Tischler-Blue screened the film for Peer Music, who holds the rights to the band’s songs, they gave their approval.

However, there was one minor detail, said Tischler-Blue — Jett wanted to see the movie first.

Following the legal advice of Fox, Tischler-Blue arranged a screening for Jett and Laguna at a law office in New York City, where Jett and her record label are based.

“We showed it to her and she went crazy,” Tischler-Blue recalled. “Joan walked in with Kenny and this whole entourage — this other henchman of hers, the hairstylist, I mean, like six other people, and Joan’s all in leather, with the leather gloves on, like, ‘The rock star has arrived.’ Everyone at Peer is like, ‘Oh my God, is this for real?’…

“So they’re watching the film and apparently Joan is like grunting through the whole thing: ‘Oh God, Oh God! I can’t believe she did that!’ And each time a Runaways song would come on Joan would go like, ‘Oh, that’s Cherry Bomb’ or ‘Oh, that’s I Love Playing With Fire.’ And they’d write down all the songs.

“At the very end,” Tischler-Blue continued, “they just all got up and left without a word. Forty-five minutes later they called and said, ‘If you issue the licensing to this music, you will hear from our attorneys…. We’re putting $100,000 into an account and we’re going to drive her into the ground.’ So Peer called me and said, ‘I hope you’re sitting down.’”

Tischler-Blue lost the rights to use the Runaways music. In a further attempt to garner licensing for some of the songs, she and Fox tried to work with The Runaways’ Svengali manager, Kim Fowley.

“Kim kind of crawled out from under a rock and started calling us,” Tischler-Blue recalled. “He would never let me shoot him for the film. He wanted $10,000…. Finally he calls me up and says, ‘Okay, I need the money. I’ll do it for five grand.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t pay you and not my band mates.’

“So the price to interview Kim keeps lowering…. Out of the blue one day, Kim started hearing about all the drama at Peer, and he’s like, ‘Maybe I should see this movie too.’ He called up Jackie (Fox) and we sent him the screener, no problem…. Kim just wants to be famous, so we’re not even worried about him.”

However, said Tischler Blue, Fowley had a big problem with one scene in particular. “We started negotiating and he said, ‘Okay, take out the ‘sex education’ scene where you guys are accusing me of raping some of you.’ We’re like, ‘Well, you did Kim,’ and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know if the statute of limitations has run out yet….’”

Though Tischler-Blue said Fowley finally offered rights for several songs he had co-written in exchange for the removal of the sex education scene, he ultimately reneged on his offer when he found out that vocalist Cherie Currie had already told the exact same story for the upcoming film about the life of legendary LA DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, The Mayor of Sunset Strip (starring Tori Amos, Cher David Bowie Nancy Sinatra, Courtney Love, No Doubt and an assortment of stars indebted to Bingenheimer).

According to Tischler-Blue, Fowley finally decided that the best way to get the scene excised from both films was to work in concert with Jett and Laguna. But Currie’s sex education flashback — in which she alleges Jett was in the room watching the rape — wasn’t the only scene that caused some discomfort.

“Kim called me and he said, ‘I won’t sign that music license unless you send to Joan and Kenny the footage you have of Cherie talking about her sexual relationship with Joan when they were kids in the band. I’m like, ‘I can’t sent that footage.’ You know, … it’s, like, really graphic and Cherie goes there — big-time…. Kim’s like, ‘Well, if you don’t send it you’re not getting the songs…. I just shut down. I almost walked away from the film….”

Though Tischler-Blue was unable to get licensing for the music, both Ford and ’70s glam rock goddess Suzi Quatro ended up donating a sizeable amount of their own material for the film’s soundtrack.

Tischler-Blue has since wrapped production on a documentary about the story of Quatro’s career and is also working on a film dealing with gender identity called, El Camino del Diablo. “That gender confusion thing is something that really piques me,” she said. “This project is kind of like the icing on the cake. I don’t think anything will be as hideous an experience as doing the Runaways movie….”

Though Tischler-Blue said she is getting along great with Ford, she and Currie are no longer on speaking terms.

A prepared statement from Jett, Currie and Runaways drummer Sandy West sent to the Gay and Lesbian Times by Laguna reads: “The Runaways set the stage for all girl rock bands who followed. We want to see an unbiased and honest account of what really happened to us. With such wonderful subject matter, we want to participate in a balanced story of what it was like to be pioneers in an all-girl rock ‘n’ roll band, when we were alone on the scene.”

Asked why Jett chose not to participate in Edgeplay, Laguna told the Times, “It’s no big drama from our point. I’m surprised actually that it’s in the newspapers already…. I have to check with the, you know, lawyers, to make sure that whatever we say is cool.”

Addressing the fracas surrounding the use of The Runaways songs, Laguna said, “Joan’s not that involved in it. They had this vision of what happened to the publishing — ‘It’s all about Joan Jett, It’s all about Joan Jett,’ but it’s really not. It’s so not on her radar screen. It’s like Joan, she loves the Runaways so much, but she’s definitely gone on, and some folks are like, still there. It’s like stirring up a hornet’s nest all the time with The Runaways. Those girls, they think they’re the Beatles,” Laguna laughed. “We were going to put [The Runaways] together a couple years ago and with one new track and a compilation and really put together something exciting and new, [but] they can’t really exist together for more than about a minute at a time.”

“I don’t want to appear ungrateful,” Tischler-Blue concluded, speaking of the band’s participation in the film. “What they gave to me, whether they know it or not, … is of a perceived value, and that’s a big deal and I’m very grateful for that. I mean I’m mad right now so towards the end I took a couple pot shots, but I think the audience will enjoy it. Nothing is vindictive.”