Tommy (1975)

It's a boy, Mrs Walker, it's a boy ...

Tommy was born in misery. Partly inspired by Pete Townshend’s troubled childhood and written at a time when the Who were growing sick of themselves, Tommy built upon Townshend’s growing obsession with “this slightly evangelical, hippie, spiritual thing” he’d essayed with the six-movement “A Quick One, While He’s Away” from A Quick One (1966). It wasn’t the first rock opera, but it was the first to make the leap from concept album to the stage, not just with the initial tour, but also adaptations for Les Grand Ballets Canadiens, the Seattle Opera, and a bombastic concert show in collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra.¹

All these live performances were just preparation for the inevitable movie – the Who’s managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were already scoping out possible deals. The only director who impressed Pete Townshend was Ken Russell “because he was English, because he was nuts” and because he clearly understood music. Russell had recently courted both controversy and acclaim with his unconventional biopics of Tchaikovsky (The Music Lovers) and Gustav Mahler (Mahler), as well as his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1969) and his idiosyncratic adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun as The Devils (1971). Russell was not a rock ‘n’ roll guy, but the London Symphony Orchestra show piqued his interest, not least because he saw the opportunity to revisit ideas he’d been toying with: “Two scripts of mine that had been unceremoniously rejected by the moguls of Hollywood as uncommercial were about to find their way into the most commercial film I’ve ever made.”²

Any plot synopsis of Tommy is going to sound bonkers, so brace yourselves. World War II interrupts the blissful marriage of Nora (Ann-Margret) and Captain Walker (Robert Powell), though not before she falls pregnant with a son. The heroic captain is assumed KIA, returning to find Nora has taken Frank (Oliver Reed) as a lover. There is a fight, Captain Walker is killed³, and the whole thing is witnessed by little Tommy (the adorable Barry Winch). In their desperation, the adults tell Tommy he didn’t hear or see any of it, and he mustn’t speak a word about it; the trauma causes the wee lad to go deaf, dumb and blind. After an unsuccessful trip to a church of hollow idolatry, Tommy falls into the care of the worst babysitters in the world, including an insane, drug-addled hooker The Acid Queen (Tina Turner), the psychopathic greaser Cousin Kevin (Paul Nicholas) and professional pervert Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon), before he’s deposited in front of a mirror. Tommy retreats into his own unseen reflection, which results in him becoming a millionaire pinball maestro, giving his parents a life of unbridled luxury while Nora’s guilt threatens to consume her. Smashing the mirror proves to be a miracle cure. Tommy’s fame as pinball wizard becomes messiah-like, his fans become acolytes, and he establishes a cult before it all comes crashing down when his promises of salvation curdle into crass commercialisation.

If you hadn’t already picked it up from the above summary: Tommy is self-serious, overblown, and utterly daft. It also happens to be brilliant, not in a “so bad it’s good” way⁴, but because it is a perfect combination of director, cast, and material. Nobody understood (or appreciated, or even indulged in) overweening ambition like Ken Russell, and nobody else could have translated the Who’s rock ‘n’ roll excess and cod intellectualism into such incredible imagery. His direction is flamboyant to the point of vulgarity, and Townshend’s often anaemic metaphors are given life through Russell’s rabid iconoclasm and Paul Dufficey’s rancid pop-art production design: pinballs knocking bombers into poppy memorials, the Marilyn Monroe Lourdes experience of “Eyesight to the Blind”, the hypodermic iron maiden of “Acid Queen” (which functions as both sex and religious metaphor), and the ratty pinball-obsessed commune in the final stretch. Opera isn’t a genre known for its nuance, rock opera even less so; in Russell’s hands, the movie becomes a parade of passionate set pieces and ideas written large enough to transcend their prosaicism.

Russell is helped by a game cast. Beyond electrifying turns by the likes of Tina Turner (in full whirling dervish mode) and an otherwise uncomfortable Elton John (perched atop a dangerously huge pair of Doc Martens)⁵, the movie hinges on a trio of performances of painful earnestness, full-throated psychodrama, and end-of-the-pier vaudeville. Roger Daltrey struggles with his first major screen role, but his apparent discomfort helps with his portrayal of the sensory-deprived Tommy. Tommy is passive and horribly abused for most of the movie – it’s amazing Daltrey’s not a walking bruise by the end of it – but when he finally emerges as a seeing, hearing, talking protagonist, his hitherto fascinating inner life transforms into beatific cliché. None of this is Daltrey’s fault, it’s just that Tommy as a character is impossible to make interesting in any meaningful way.

Conversely, Ann-Margret manages to play Nora from twenty to forty-five, from innocent girl to slatternly drunk to born-again acolyte, with such uninhibited, fearless energy that she’s impossible to ignore. Many actresses have been described as brave for “playing ugly”, but few have suffered like Ann-Margret does in Tommy. The leopard print and unflattering makeup is one thing; having to writhe in a slurry of baked beans and melted chocolate is quite another. That she manages to endure this, belt out her numbers, and manage to pull off a deeply conflicted acting performance is miraculous, and it's no surprise that she garnered an Academy Award nomination for her troubles. All due respect to Louise Fletcher, but that wee golden fella should’ve gone to the Swede; she did, after all, do all the acting.

And now we come to the bête noire of Tommy, at least for fans of the Who: that posh gorilla Oliver Reed, an actor known more for his thirst than his talent, and one who infamously couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket⁶. Reed was a Russell favourite, though Russell was quick to note that he had “limited” acting ability, and was directed primarily through a series of numbered “moods”. His songs were recorded a line – and sometimes a word – at a time, which infuriated Pete Townshend; he lost Russell a real holiday camp location when he exposed himself to the proprietor; and he and fellow dedicated inebriate Keith Moon engaged in so many shenanigans that they eclipse the Tommy chapters in their respective biographies. And yet, his Uncle Frank is one of the most entertaining things in the film, a broader-than-broad comic performance that would overwhelm any other movie. Whether he’s guzzling Newcastle Brown and startling poor Barry Winch into blinking in “Christmas”⁷, doing a double monocle drop and perfecting the line reading of “I wish I knew” in “Go to the Mirror!” or stomping the hands of Russell’s daughter in “Sally Simpson” (which is a cracking mini Ken Russell movie by itself), Reed is a subversive, menacing delight.

Some of the cameos fare less well. Paul Nicholas, soon to be a vampiric Nazi Wagner in Russell’s 1975 Lisztomania, is an equally unhinged Cousin Kevin in a shrill number that goes on a bit too long. Keith Moon’s turn as Uncle Ernie is grotesque fun (and it’s a nice touch that his blacked out teeth become gold when Tommy comes into money), but again, a little goes a long way. I happen to like Jack Nicholson; as The Specialist, he’s following in the footsteps of such musical legends as Richard Harris (who delivers his turn in the Camelot style) and Peter Sellers, so it’s nice that he actually attempts to sing, but I understand the complaints even if that particular sequence is one of my favourites. As for Eric Clapton as The Preacher, the less said the better – always something of a charisma vacuum, he’s clearly the worse for wear (he was deep into his drugs, alcohol, and racism phase), and thoroughly overshadowed by not only the production design, but also the explosive presence of Arthur “God of Hellfire” Brown as The Priest, who arguably should’ve taken Clapton’s role in the first place.

Critical reaction was as polarised as you’d expect. While the New York Magazine reviewer called it “one of the noisiest, stupidest, and most vulgar movies of recent times” and “unrelieved torture for the eyes and ears”, others like Janet Maslin appreciated Ann-Margret’s performance and Russell’s “visceral and vigorous cinema”. Even Vincent Canby (who had been scathing about The Devils) managed to balance his obvious dislike of Russell’s work with an admission that “good taste would have been wildly inappropriate and a fearful drag”, likening the movie to a jukebox in that “it is not something you’d want to live with every day but it’s kind of fun when you go out.”

And this is the thing: Tommy can be an acquired taste. Unlike musicals, rock operas tend to feel like someone shouting at you for two hours, or suffer from Lloyd-Webber “one melody repeated ad nauseam” syndrome. Even otherwise diehard Who fans struggle to like this one, too caught up in their appreciation of the original album to recognise the sheer virtuosity of Russell’s film. And while it may not be the director’s masterpiece - for me, that’s still The Devils - it’s certainly the most commercial and accessible version of The Ken Russell Experience, and a gateway to a filmography so utterly unique that “idiosyncratic” doesn’t begin to describe it.

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Next Up: “Above all … It’s a love story.”

1. I should get this out of the way: I am not a huge fan of the 1969 album, which always struck me as a wee bit underbaked (immediately braces for impact). The London Symphony Orchestra concert is a good entry point with a cracking line-up (Richard Harris! Richie Havens! Merry Clayton! Sandy Denny! Steve Winwood! Ringo Starr as Uncle Ernie!), but I still prefer the movie soundtrack. I’ve written this whole post primarily to get the songs out of my head. It hasn’t worked - “There is no chance, no untried operation” etc. (For more on the stage versions, I highly recommend this interview.)

2. The Angels featured a pop-star Lourdes, and Music, Music, Music was about the composer of a religious rock opera who cracks up when he starts composing ad jingles for baked beans, soap detergent, and chocolates. Both scenes make notable appearances in Tommy.

3. It should be noted that Captain Walker kills the lover in the original story. There are arguments each way for this: it’s more traumatic that Walker goes from ideal dad to murderer, and Robert Powell could have pulled it off, but it would mean a lack of Oliver Reed, and that would be a crying shame.

4. Let “so bad it’s good” join “guilty pleasure” in its own special circle of Hell. We’re all friends here, folks. If you like something, it’s fine. “When you’re in stir, you take the laughs when you can get ‘em, Rosenthal.”

5. Apparently Elton John was reluctant to take the part, which had previously been earmarked for Tiny Tim (which would have been a definite choice) and Stevie Wonder. David Essex was also considered and even recorded a demo for “Pinball Wizard”, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else filling those colossal boots.

6. His only song in Oliver! was cut from the film. Ann-Margret (ever the treasure) once described Reed’s singing voice as “a husky growl that comes right up from his stomach” (much like the famous That’s Life dog). I’d call it “comically tone-deaf and all the better for it”.

7. I’ve seen some uncharitable souls suggesting that Barry Winch breaks character because he blinks, when he’s clearly just reacting to being jostled. Also, he’s a kid - give him a fucking break. Bizarrely, “Christmas” also features an uncredited early appearance by future reality show stalwart Lisa Vanderpump as one of the children (she also appears in Lisztomania). I’m not entirely sure, but I believe she’s one of the girls who looks directly at the camera.