| Tommy | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Ken Russell |
| Produced by | Ken Russell Robert Stigwood |
| Written by | Ken Russell Pete Townshend |
| Starring | Roger Daltrey Ann-Margret Oliver Reed Tina Turner Elton John Eric Clapton Keith Moon Paul Nicholas Jack Nicholson Robert Powell |
| Music by | The Who |
| Cinematography | Dick Bush Ronnie Taylor |
| Editing by | Stuart Baird |
| Studio | RSO |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 19 March 1975 (US) 26 March 1975 (UK)[1] |
| Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$5 million[2] |
| Box office | $34,251,525 |
Tommy is a 1975 British musical film based upon The Who's 1969 rock opera album musical Tommy.[3] It was directed by Ken Russell and featured a star-studded cast, including the band members themselves (most notably, lead singer Roger Daltrey plays the title role). The other cast members include Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Elton John, and Jack Nicholson.
Ann-Margret received a Golden Globe Award for her performance, and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Pete Townshend was also nominated for an Oscar for his work in scoring and adapting the music for the film. The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.[4] In 1975 the film won the award for Rock Movie of the Year in the First Annual Rock Music Awards.[5]
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The film is sung-through, with occasional sporadic and surrealist elements. The plot begins as a sun lowers behind the horizon followed by several romantic experiences between Royal Air Force Group Captain Walker (Robert Powell) and his wife, Nora (Ann-Margret), among the intimacy of nature. He has been drafted in the military and leaves Nora to fight in the war as a bomber pilot. Sometime later, Nora receives the news that her husband is missing and believed to be dead. She soon thereafter gives birth to a baby boy, Tommy. She eventually meets Frank (Oliver Reed), known to Tommy as Uncle Frank, at a holiday camp and starts a relationship with him. Tommy, still only a boy now, hopes to one day own his own holiday camp.
After Tommy is kissed good night by Nora, Captain Walker returns home and wakes him up. Tommy follows him to the master bedroom where Walker sees Nora and Frank (now Tommy's stepfather) in each other's arms. Tommy then watches Frank kill Walker by smashing a lamp on his head (in the original album version and later musical, however, it is Captain Walker who kills his wife's lover). Tommy is then told that he "didn't hear it, didn't see it" and "won't say nothing to no-one". As a result, Tommy goes into shock and ultimately becomes non-responsive, leading people to believe that he is deaf, dumb, and blind.
The film jumps ahead ten years, and Tommy, now a young man, is being taken by his mother and uncle on various attempts to cure him, including a religious cult that worships Marilyn Monroe (with Eric Clapton as the preacher), and the Acid Queen (Tina Turner), a prostitute dealing in LSD who sends Tommy on a wild trip that ultimately, however, fails to awaken him.
Nora and Frank frequently leave Tommy with his sadistic Cousin Kevin (Paul Nicholas), who beats and tortures him. Later, Frank and Nora go for a night out and leave Tommy with his Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon), a filthy, alcoholic child molester. When Frank and Nora leave, Ernie molests Tommy, having at last found a child he can abuse without being caught as Tommy does not know what is happening. The plan backfires when Frank and Nora return home and Frank finds Ernie in bed with Tommy. Ernie is caught in the act and arrested. One night, Tommy is staring at the mirror while his parents eat dinner. Tommy's id appears in the mirror and guides him to a junkyard, where he finds a pinball machine, and spends the rest of the night playing on it. Becoming an expert of the game, due to the lack of seeing and hearing the distractions, he defeats the local champ (Elton John) at a televised pinball championship, featuring The Who performing (sans Daltrey) as the local lad's backing band. The match ends with the hysterical crowd storming the stage, the band smashing up their equipment and the local lad (dressed in Doc Marten boots that are several feet high), falling into the hands of a booing audience who carry him out of the hall. Tommy is hailed as pinball champ.
The family becomes rich and famous thanks to Tommy's popularity. However, Nora thinks it isn't worth anything because Tommy is still disabled. Deeply upset when watching her son winning the pinball championship from earlier on television, she throws her champagne bottle at the TV screen, and then hallucinates the broken screen exploding champagne, beans, laundry detergent, and chocolate.
Frank announces that he has found a doctor who can look into people like Tommy, so they see him the next day. The doctor (Jack Nicholson) confirms that Tommy's problems are psychosomatic and not physical. At home, Nora tries to get Tommy's attention, but with no avail. She pushes him into the mirror, shattering it. Tommy lands into the swimming pool, and his senses return. He uses his newfound awareness to try to bring enlightenment to people using the symbol of a "T" topped with a sphere (a pinball).
Tommy starts holding rallies and lectures, with Uncle Ernie selling merchandise. Sally Simpson (Victoria Russell), a young reverend's daughter obsessed with Tommy, begs her parents to let her go to one of his sermons. Furious when they deny her permission, she spends all afternoon getting ready and sneaks out of her house to the sermon, which takes the form of a wild concert set to gospel music. Sally sits at the front row and as the police desperately try to control all the screaming girls, Sally pushes past onto the edge of the stage, attempting to touch Tommy. Frank, sitting behind Tommy onstage, kicks her away. Sally gashes her face on a chair and the ambulance men carry her out. She grows up to marry a green-skinned, guitar playing rock star who is a cross between a cowboy and Frankenstein's monster (Gary Rich). Her parents are distraught that their daughter has become a groupie. Sally forevermore carries a horrific scar streaked across her cheek to remember Tommy by.
In just a year, Tommy declares himself a 'sensation' and begins to have a profound impact on people whenever he nears them, including motorcycle gangs and slot-machine gambling Teddy Boys. Flying above them in a hang-glider, Tommy's mere presence converts them to a new life opposed to their previous wicked ways.
Masses of people begin to gather at Tommy's house, seeking spiritual fulfilment. However, the house is not big enough to accommodate the massive population, so Tommy declares to open a holiday camp, his lifelong wish from the beginning of the movie. Nora appears on television advertising his plans and Frank intends to eventually have a Tommy camp in every major city in the world.
Millions flock to Tommy's Holiday Camp. They arrive by the bus-load, finding Uncle Ernie to welcome them. Sitting atop a motorised church organ that doubles as a cash register, Uncle Ernie sings of the joys of the camp while also flogging Tommy merchandise to the crowds. The crowd begins clamouring for Tommy to bring them enlightenment. Tommy begins preaching. bans drinking and smoking, and has each follower wear a headgear that blinds, deafens, and silences them and then they are taken to a pinball machines. The followers, realising that Tommy's enlightenment is reached through discovering a state of awareness while his phase, start rioting, destroying the machines, and spreading fire over the camp. They retreat at the sound of a police siren. Frank and Nora die in the attack. Tommy, only mildly injured, flees as flames engulf the camp. As Tommy escapes, he arrives at the same place in the wilderness in the beginning of the film where his parents spent a romantic day together (presumably the day he was conceived). Although alone, Tommy attains an even greater sense of self-awareness as he faces a rising sun and a new dawn.
In his commentary for the 2004 DVD release of the film, Ken Russell stated that the opening and closing outdoor scenes were shot in the Borrowdale valley of the English Lake District, near his own home, the same area that he had used to double for Bavaria in his earlier film Mahler, in which Robert Powell had starred. Much of the film was shot on locations around Portsmouth, including the scene near the end of the movie featuring the giant 'pinballs', which were in fact obsolete buoys found in a British Navy yard, which were simply sprayed silver and filmed in situ. Several other segments, including part of the Bernie's Holiday Camp sequence and the concert scenes in the 'Sally Simpson' sequence were shot inside the Gaiety Theatre on South Parade Pier at Southsea in Hampshire.[6]
On 11 June 1974, the pier caught fire and was badly damaged while the production was filming there; according to Russell, the fire started during the filming of the scene of Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed dancing together during the "Bernie's Holiday Camp" sequence, and smoke from the fire can in fact be seen drifting in front of the camera in several shots; Russell also used a brief exterior shot of the building fully ablaze during the scenes of the destruction of Tommy's Holiday Camp by his disillusioned followers.[7][8] The Pinball Wizard sequence was shot at the Kings Theatre in Southsea,[9] others on Portsdown Hill, which overlooks Portsmouth and two local churches were also used, one in Old Portsmouth, the other St John's in Stamshaw.
The famous scene in which Ann-Margret's character hallucinates that she is cavorting in detergent foam, baked beans and chocolate reportedly took three days to shoot. According to Russell, the detergent and baked bean sequences were 'revenge' parodies of real-life TV advertisements he had directed early in his career, although the baked bean sequence also references one of the cover photos and a parody radio ad from The Who's 1967 album The Who Sell Out. Russell also recalled that Ann-Margret's husband strongly objected to the scene in which she slithers around in melted chocolate. During the filming, Ann-Margret accidentally struck her hand on the broken glass of the TV screen, causing a severe laceration, and Russell had to take her to hospital to have the wound stitched, although she was back on set the next day.[7] The film also includes a scene in which Mrs Walker watches a parodic TV advertisement for the fictional product "Rex Baked Beans"; the costumes in this segment were originally made for the lavish masked ball sequence in Richard Lester's version of The Three Musketeers, and the dress worn by the Queen in the Rex ad is that worn by Geraldine Chaplin in the earlier film.[10]
Elton John initially turned down the role of the Pinball Wizard and among those considered to replace him was David Essex, who recorded a test audio version of the "Pinball Wizard" song. However, producer Robert Stigwood held out until Elton John agreed to take the part, reportedly on condition that he could keep the gigantic Dr. Martens boots he wore in the scene. Russell also recalled that Pete Townshend initially balked at Russell's wish to have The Who performing behind Elton in the sequence (they did not perform the audio here), and also objected to wearing the pound-note suits (which were in fact stitched together from novelty pound-note teatowels).[7] On The Who's involvement with the film, members Roger Daltrey played the title character, Keith Moon played, in essence, a dual role as both Uncle Ernie and as himself along with John Entwistle and Pete Townshend lip-synching on their respective instruments in the Eyesight to The Blind and Pinball Wizard segments.
The original release of Tommy used a sound system devised by sound engineer John Mosely called "Quintaphonic Sound".[11] At the time that the film was in production various "Quadraphonic" (four speaker) sound systems were being marketed to the domestic HiFi market. Some of these were so-called "matrix" systems which combined the four original channels into two which could be recorded on, or transmitted by, existing 2-channel stereo systems such as LP records or FM radio. John Mosely used one of these systems (QS from Sansui) to record front left, front right, back left and back right channels on the left and right tracks of a 4-track magnetic striped print of the Cinemascope type. A discrete center channel was also recorded on the center track of the print. The fourth (surround) track on the striped print was left unused. In addition John Mosely used DBX noise reduction on the magnetic tracks.
Unlike the usual multiple small surround speakers used in cinemas, the Quintaphonic system specified just two rear speakers, but of the same type as those used at the front.
One problem that arose was that by the 1970s the 4-track magnetic sound system was largely moribund. Only a few theatres were equipped with the necessary magnetic playback heads etc. and of those that did in many cases it was not in working order. So in addition to installing the extra electronics and rear speakers John Mosely and his team had to repair and align the basic magnetic playback equipment. So each theatre that showed Tommy using the Quintaphonic system had to be specially prepared to take the film. In this respect there is a similarity between Tommy and Walt Disney's Fantasia for which a special sound system (Fantasound) had been devised and required each theatre that showed it in the original release to be specially prepared. Also, like Fantasound, Quintaphonic Sound was never used again.
Tommy was later released with mono, conventional 4-track magnetic and Dolby Stereo soundtracks.
The film version of Tommy differs in numerous ways from the original 1969 album. The primary change is the period, which is moved forward to the post-World War II era, while the original album takes place just after World War I. As a result the song "1921" is renamed "1951" and the opening line "got a feelin' '21 is gonna be a good year" changes to "got a feelin' '51 is gonna be a good year". The historical change allowed Russell to use more contemporary images and settings.
In the album, Group Captain Walker returns to find his wife with a new lover and kills him, but in the film this is reversed; the lover (Reed) kills Walker in front of Tommy, heightening the psychological trauma.
Unlike other filmed rock operas (such as that of Pink Floyd's The Wall) the album is never dubbed over the film; the different actors – including Nicholson and Reed, neither of whom were known for their vocal prowess (Reed's character's songs were cut from Oliver!, and Nicholson's in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever appeared only in the now-lost roadshow version) – perform the songs in character instead of The Who, with the exception of Daltrey as Tommy and where Townshend sings narration in place of recitative.
Because of this, all the songs are rerecorded and the song order is shuffled around considerably; this and the addition of several new songs and links creates a more balanced structure of alternating short and long sequences. A large number of songs have new lyrics and instrumentation, and another notable feature is that many of the songs and pieces used on the film soundtrack are alternate versions or mixes from the versions on the soundtrack album.
Major differences between the 1969 and 1975 version:
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Billboard Pop Albums | 2 |
| 1975 | UK Chart Albums | 21 |
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