Former New York Dolls bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane hit rock bottom when he saw former bandmate David Johansen on TV. Consumed with jealousy and rage, he drank a large quantity of peppermint schnapps, beat his wife with cat furniture, and jumped out the window of his dumpy apartment. It'd be hard to imagine a more squalid or unintentionally black-comic burlesque of rock-star bad behavior, and for Kane, it was the culmination of years of failure, bitterness, and envy. Since the Dolls' breakup, Kane came to see Johansen as his personal nemesis, a demonic figure whose modest success in acting and music threw Kane's crushing failures into sharper relief. But Kane also viewed Johansen as the vehicle for his own professional redemption, since he pined desperately for a New York Dolls reunion that'd give him one last shot at the glory he'd experienced decades earlier.
The unexpectedly heartwarming documentary New York Doll memorably chronicles how a rock god became a bitter, drunken lost soul, then a committed Mormon, and then finally a rock god again, at least for one brief, shining moment. It's a rock 'n' roll fairy tale of sorts, with Morrissey serving as Kane's unexpected fairy godfather, the man who allowed Kane to live out his dreams.
Kane earned the "Killer" moniker for his devastating basslines, but as the film opens, it seems like a wildly ironic nickname for a balding, whiny, poverty-stricken, middle-aged schlemiel with a simpering voice. The early parts of New York Doll play off the surreal contrast between Kane's early tenure in one of rock's most revered and influential bands and his later life as a Jesus-lover whose life revolves around worship and his library-clerk job.
One of the pillars upon which both punk and glam rock were built, the Dolls didn't win many fans during its brief existence, but–like Big Star and The Velvet Underground–it attracted followers who seemingly all went on to form their own bands. One of those fans-turned-musicians was Morrissey, who got the New York Dolls to reunite for a festival he organized in London. The film's second half is dominated by the preparations and the show itself, a poignant, triumphant climax in which Kane reunites with Sylvain Sylvain and Johansen, who playfully teases his dorky bandmate for his religious devotion, but seems genuinely moved by their reconciliation. It's borderline adorable, which may not seem terribly rock 'n' roll, but Kane is a most atypical rock 'n' roller. Poignant and moving, with an ending no screenwriter could improve on, New York Doll is like the best episode of VH1's Bands Reunited ever.