STARDUST

Stardust picks up a few years after the end of the film That'll Be The Day. Jim MacLaine (David Essex) has formed a band (The Stray Cats) and become a big star. So big, he decides he no longer needs his band and goes solo. In the end, fame and riches have a detrimental effect on his personal life

Besides Davie Essex, Stardust features several other musicians: Adam Faith, Marty Wilde, Keith Moon, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds (who went on in real life to produce the rockabilly band Stray Cats), and Paul Nicholas. There's a lot more music performed in this movie than there was in That'll Be The Day (where most of the music was on the soundtrack), but the soundtrack here is also filled with great songs from the era (in fact, more people bought the soundtrack than ever saw this film).

While I enjoyed That'll Be The Day immensely, I was a little bit let down viewing Stardust. It's not a bad film, but the hackneyed storyline about a musician who thinks he's too big for the band he's in, goes solo and puts out egocentric music, gets hooked on drugs, pines for the old days, and o.d.'s in the end, just didn't do it for me. Even though Jim MacLaine was somewhat of an unlikable character in the That'll Be The Day, I still rooted for him. In this second feature, I never felt or cared much about MacLaine. Still, this film is well worth seeing and is almost a requirement if you've seen the first movie.

THAT'LL BE THE DAY

That'll Be The Day stars David Essex as Jim MacLaine, a young man in search of his own identity. The film is based on Nilsson's song "1941" and also has some parallels to the life of John Lennon. The movie begins in the late 1950's with MacLaine's father abandoning his family after WWII (a theme which I have seen in several British films set in this era) and ends in the early 1960's with MacLaine abandoning his own family for the world of rock and roll.

After dropping out of high school, MacLaine works a number of dead end jobs, and while working as a barman at a holiday camp he meets Mike (Ringo Starr) who becomes his mentor. Ringo is superb in his part, as good as any other actor in the film. I imagine his familiarity with the era helped a lot in making his character so believable. Billy Fury plays Stormy Tempest (based on Rory Storm) in the house band at the camp's bar. The drummer for the band is Keith Moon of The Who, who also has a small acting part. Moon has one of my favorite lines in the film, when asked if he has ever thought about writing his own songs, he replies "you got to be American to write Rock and Roll songs".

Most of the music in That'll Be The Day is on the soundtrack (comparable to the American Graffiti soundtrack), but besides the Stormy Tempest band, there are only two other bands in the movie: a Trad Band and an early rock and roll band (featuring Eugene Wallace as the lead singer). After seeing the rock and roll band, MacLaine/Essex buys a guitar and the film abruptly ends, and MacLaine's story is continued in the film's sequel, Stardust.

TOMMY

Tommy is probably the best known rock opera since it has been an album, a movie, and a stage play.  The term "Rock Opera" grates on me, I think Rock is Rock and Opera is Opera and the twain should never meet. To me, trying to make rock into opera is a sign you're ashamed of rock and want to do"legitimate music". 

Tommy (as an opera should be) is entirely sung. That would have all been well and good IF the songs were good, but unfortunately "Tommy", "Pinball Wizard", and "I'm Free" are the only three songs that worked for me....and yes that includes "Acid Queen" by Tina Turner and I'm a big fan of Tina's.

Since I have an aversion to "rock operas", plus Pete Townshend grates on me (I think it's his self-importance that is off-putting), I should have steered clear of Tommy. However, I had fond memories of seeing Tommy on the big screen when it was originally released, and I even saw a stage production in Atlanta many years later. The best thing I could have done was to have left Tommy in my memory banks and went on with my life.  I found either my tastes have changed or the movie really wasn't very good to begin with. Either way, it was a slough to get through this film. The next time I want to watch something with "Tommy" in the title, I'll choose Tommy Boy.

MONTEREY POP

When I first saw Monterey Pop, I'm sure I thought it was cool and far out and maybe even groovy. Re-watching it these many years later, for the most part, I have a completely different attitude about the movie.


First up were The Mamas and The Papas doing "California Dreaming" and as much as I enjoy their harmonies on the record, in this performance they just didn't have it together. Canned Heat was up next with some white boy blues doing "Rollin and Tumblin" and this song still held up after all of these years. Third in the movie were Simon and Garfunkel singing "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)". I've never been a big fan of this duo, either together or solo, but I have to admit their harmonies were as good live as on the record. Next came jazz with Hugh Masekela performing "Bajabula Bonke (Healing Song)", since I 'm really not a fan of jazz, I was very thankful when this song was over. I know I used to like Jefferson Airplane, at least their first few albums, but their first song "High Flyin' Bird" was terrible and their second song, "Today", on which Grace Slick, sang lead wasn't much better....but at least it was better.


Finally a stand-out performance when Janis Joplin backed by Big Brother and The Holding Company perform "Ball & Chain". It was a thrill to see someone so young with so much soul but sad to think of her life being so short. One thing to watch for is when Janis finishes her song and runs offstage, you can see how happy she was with her own performance. Even though Eric Burdon & The Animals diddled around a little too much before getting into the main part of "Paint It Black"....I understand it was 1967 and some diddling was expected, if you wanted to be taken seriously....once they got things rolling it was a great performance. Unfortunately after seeing a couple of good performances, The Who were up next, with "My Generation". I never got that stutter thing in the song and especially always thought the fake trashing of instruments was goofy. They were still worth watching for one reason - Keith Moon pounding the hell out of his drums. To make matters worse, The Who were followed by probably the worst performance in the movie with Country Joe and The Fish doing "Section 43", a terrible waste of film and my time.


Getting the movie back on track was Otis Redding, backed by Booker T and The MG's, showing everyone how it's done with "Shake" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long". Otis is followed by another stand-out performance with The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing "Wild Thing", although the guitar burning elicits the same response in me as when The Who trashed their instruments. The Mamas and The Papas redeem themselves with their second song performance "Got a Feelin" and then the movie closes out with a l-o-n-g Ravi Shankar performance "Raga Bhimpalasi", this finally bored me enough that I had to use the FF button to get to the end of the movie.

SEXTETTE

In 1978, when Sextette was made, Mae West was an iconic figure like Bogart and Monroe. The passage of years has dimmed her status somewhat, but I tried to view Sextette in the context of the year it was made. I'm almost sure that I saw this movie in the theater, but the passage of years has also dimmed my memory. I'm sure we were thrilled to see such an icon back up on the big screen in 1978, especially since Sextette threw a couple of bones to the younger generation by including Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, and Keith Moon among the cast.


Unfortunately, viewing Sextette today all I could see was a creepy looking old woman (I apologize to the memory of Mae West) delivering Mae West's one-liners. While I'm not technically knowledgeable enough to know exactly how the movie was shot, I do know that the make-up used on Mae West caused light to bounce off her face making it appear blurry and washed out at times. I'm not talking about close-up shots where they could put Vaseline on the lens, I'm talking about scenes with other actors where you can clearly see their faces. Instead of achieving the desired effect of making Mae's face look younger, it actually achieved the opposite effect. Another thing that added to Mae looking older was her costuming (credited to Edith Head), it looked like Mae was always wearing something straight out of one of her 1930s movies.


The basic plot of Sextette is that Mae and Timothy Dalton have just wed and they are on their honeymoon. Unfortunately, their plans for the bedroom keep getting interrupted. Mae is kept busy trying to make sure World Peace happens (I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP!), while Timothy Dalton spends most of his time trying to convince people he's not gay. A side note: while Dalton had yet to play James Bond (he had been offered the part several times already) in Sextette it turns out that he's a spy.


As the movie rolls along we get different dance/song numbers and different guest stars showing up throughout the movie. Keith Moon probably has the best guest starring role as a wardrobe dresser, he's flounces about while Mae tries on different dresses delivering one of her famous one-liners with each one. Ringo Starr shows up later in the movie as a movie director, an ex-husband of Mae's, trying to shoot a rehearsal love scene. I thought I had missed Alice Cooper, but he doesn't make his appearance until almost the end of the movie where he sings a disco-like number: "Never Never". Two other music performers of note have brief parts: Van McCoy (who also wrote and sings the theme song "Marlo") appears as one of the peace delegates and Keith Allison of Paul Revere and The Raiders has a very brief scene as a room service waiter, cleverly named Keith. One last music connection that should be noted is Dom De Luise who sings The Beatles "Honey Pie" next to a cardboard cutout (that looks almost as lifelike) of Mae West.