I may be able to help explain. I saw The Who perform live before the film "Tommy" came out, back when Keith Moon was still alive. I cut high school the day "Tommy" opened in NYC to see the movie on its first day. So I was a huge Who fan who couldn't wait to see the movie. Most of my friends felt the same way.
But we didn't like it very much. It was OK, but not great. It wasn't how most of us visualized it in our heads. That wouldn't have been so bad - most movies based on other material (usually books) don't look exactly how you visualize them- but Tommy was off the charts. If it had been a bit trippier in a good way (and believe me, back then we used the term "trippy" quite literally) - we would have loved it. The Acid Queen sequence was decent, as was Clapton's Marilyn Monroe sequence and Ann-Margret's solo in front of the TV, but most of the stuff was too campy for our tastes.
The biggest downer was the music...for the most part it was second rate, a step down from the album. For about a year, the version of "Pinball Wizard" with Elton John became the radio standard instead of the original album version. Elton was OK, but not nearly as good as the original. Some of the instrumental score was good, but most of the songs were crap. Tina Turner was terrible, not necessarily her fault, but the arrangement was awful.
The worst part of the whole experience - which you can't tell from here but someone else on the thread alluded to - was the hype surrounding the movie. The promotion was intense, Tommy mania. One of the cool things about rock 'n roll when you're a teenager is that your music is kinda underground, outside the establishment, even outside the law. When it goes commercial and mainstream, it becomes instantly lame.
6/10 is about right, maybe 7/10 because of Ann-Margret's acting and The Who's original concept/music. But Ken Russell should have been tarred and feathered for what he did to a great work of art.
reply
share