Tommy, Ken Russell's film on consumerism and false gods, directed in 1975. Pete Townsend of The Who's rock opera album brought to cinema. It was becoming fashionable to produce concept albums and Pete Townsend surpassed most by coming up with a n interesting story line, even if it at times does not fit together. The story is inspired by the blues song Eyesight for the Blind by blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson. Russell shifted some of the scenes to make some more sense of the plot, and the setting moved from after the first world war to after the second world war.
The story concerns a child Tommy who witnesses his father being murdered by his mother and lover Oliver Reed.
His mother (who works in a ball-bearing factory) tells him not to tell what he saw or heard, so he becomes deaf, dumb and blind. He does have one gift, he can play pinball. The pinballs are identical to the ball-bearings from his mother's factory, and to the device later put in his eyes at the instigation of the doctor, Jack Nicholson.
The film is a series of visual images. In the church Marilyn Monroe replaces the Virgin Mary and under her image blondes in Monroe masks give the sacrament of whisky and pills.
But she turns out to be a fallen idol.
Next Tina Turner is the acid queen.
"If your child ain't all he should be now, this girl will put him right. I'll show him what he could be now, just give me one more night" sings the Acid Queen but her attempt to awaken his senses with sex and drugs also fails.
Tommy emerges as a pinball wizard defeating the previous champion, Elton John, and leads to Tommy becoming a new messiah with a mass following. His parents exploit this.
The famous attack on commercialism with Ann-Margret writhing in a sea of beans is based on the Who's album "The Who Sell Out" where Daltry appears eating Heinz Beans etc to attack commercialism- this scene with Ann-Margret is the one the most people ask me if I can send them more photos. Russell himself did advertisements for baked beans and soap suds- in his advert, to show how the soap suds simply disappeared down the sink he filmed the suds being pumped into the sink then reversed the film (from DVD commentary).
During the film there were a number of accidents. Ann-Margret cut herself while filming the soapsuds episode (turning the suds red). Ann-Margret says "my hand went to the TV screen and the cut glass sliced into it. Dripping with blood I was quickly wrapped in a blanket and carried off the set, and then rushed to the hospital, where doctors took twenty-seven stitches to close the wound... [then] I shot a scene with my arm hidden under a table". Tommy becomes a messiah figure to his followers until they realise they also have to become deaf, dumb and blind.
Daltry underwater almost drowned before the crew realised he was in trouble and dived in to help him. Daltry burnt himself when running through the fire and the later takes(below) show him holding his injured arm.
Most spectacularly when filming on Southsea pier a fire broke out seriously damaging the pier. Ken filmed the real fire (above) in part of Daltry´s running through fire sequence.
Monty
Python spin-off Rutland Weekend Television did a short spoof version, Pommy. |
The Who obviously appear. Roger Daltry is Tommy and fortunately he does not speak for most of the film. Apart from Daltry, Keith Moon is the only acting Who member, relishing his role as the child molesting Uncle Ernie. "The film’s biggest mistake was in Daltrey’s lead characterization, as he vacuously played dumb but never convincingly. The result is a pop culture film of great visual splendor that brings back memories of that rock era, but not all the memories are pleasant" (Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews, 24 Feb 2006, click here). Other rock stars such as Elton John (Pinball Wizard) and Tina Turner (the Acid Queen) are spectacular in their video segments. Elton John was a possibility for a role in Ken Russell's Rainbow before he chickened out, but Russell did direct his Nikita video (where the Pinball Wizard boots reappear).
Eric Clapton was too drugged out so Arthur Brown was brought in to make the scene more interesting.
Oliver Reed appears as the Father, Ann-Margret as the mother (she was nominated for an Oscar for the role).
Jack Nicholson as the doctor, was only on set for a day, "it was all we could afford" (Roger Daltry from Press Promo on DVD extras).
Ken Russell's daughter Victoria plays Sally Simpson. Editing is by Stuart Baird. Cinematography is by Dick Bush and after Dick Bush walked off Ronnie Taylor. Costumes are by Shirley Russell. The Monroe statue was by Paul Dufficey (from Ken Russell interview in DVD extras). Ken used in total a crew of 88. Tommy cost $2 million and took 22 weeks to shoot. When Russell made Tommy he suddenly had a major commercial success on his hands. Disappointingly is was followed up by a cash-in movie Lisztomania, and box-office failure of Valentino removed his commercial tag.
Russell can be seen in a wheelchair cameo.
All images from the DVD of the film, plus the cover of The Who Sell Out and the Pommy poster. |
The church worshipping Marilyn Monroe with the row of Marilyns walking down the aisle.
Dancers in gas masks in the London blitz sequences. The war sequences were originally going to be black and white.
Running through the mustard fields.
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Best Scene
Tina Turner's Acid Queen. She says "I was offered the role of the Acid Queen.... Ike [Turner] kept me on a very short leash, so it was exciting whenever there was an opportunity to get out from under his shadow. I was thrilled... I brought my own clothes to the set, just in case I didn't like the costumes. Thank God! You should have seen how they would have dressed me... The costume designer, Russell's wife Shirley, said that I could wear them, although she came up with the Acid Queen's clunky platform shoes. Ken Russell loved the way I looked" (Tina Turner, My Love Story, 2018 chapter 5). "Tina Turner’s Acid Queen sequence is a mini-masterpiece of visual inventiveness and dramatic cohesion, helped in no small measure by Turner’s extraordinary showmanship" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, British Film Institute, 27 Nov 2019, click here).
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Themes
He descends on Hells Angels from the air (a heavens angel), here reflected in the glasses. He did his own stunts apart from jumping off a chruch tower in the hang-glider. Tommy has a lot of references including to Ken's BBC days (the waterfall sequences) as well as to Mahler (Robert Powell and the rocks). The train scene is similar to Fenby´s arrival in Delius, and the blind and paralysed Delius is a proto-Tommy. The mirrors with the young child could be from Bartok, the corridors remind you of the convent in The Devils.
There are snakes crawling on a skeleton. The same image occurs in Russell's Gothic.
Daltry appears in a number of Christ images including crucifixion, walking on water, and running on the beach with the fishermen ("I will make you fishers of men").
The "cure" imagery is similar to that in Kubrick´s A Clockwork Orange
from 1971.
Russells's Brief Encounters homage.
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Films
Other films released in the same year include Star Wars, Annie Hall and The Spy Who Loved Me as well as Russell's Lisztomania.
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