- Roger Daltrey, singer for The Who
Watching The Who was just as exciting as listening to them. For any other band, songs this good performed by members this talented would have been enough but The Who added leaps, spinning microphones, heroic poses, and a mad thrashing, and sometimes crashing, of instruments for an audio-visual overload that left concert-goers exhilarated.
Capturing it on film would have seemed a natural idea, but it took fifteen years and many, many attempts to finally bring about The Kids Are Alright (1979).
Shortly after The Who assembled in 1964, the first try got underway. Two low-level workers in the British film industry, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, had been looking for a band to make the subject of a documentary; a sort of Making the Band movie. Lambert was the first to spot the group and he and Stamp quickly snapped them up, edging out their former manager. However, just getting The Who onto the charts and keeping them afloat took all their time and the movie was left forgotten.
Next was famed Italian art-film director Michelangelo Antonioni, suitably impressed after watching The Who at the Goldhawk Social Club in London at the end of 1965. He was unable to secure their services, instead hiring The Yardbirds to re-create The Who's act for his movie Blow-Up (1966).
By 1975, The Who had managed to play a major part in one movie, Ken Russell's bizarre interpretation of their rock opera Tommy (1975) and it was while lead guitarist Pete Townshend was in New York for that film's premiere that he was approached by 21-year old Who fan Jeff Stein.
Stein's scheme was to make a movie about The Who using found material from old television clips. The band would merely have to give its permission and the whole thing would practically be done! Townshend agreed and the rest of The Who were convinced after watching a 17-minute test reel.
Stein's simple plan turned out to be a bit harder to realize than he thought. Almost two years were spent getting the money from backers, securing a distribution deal, and then searching around the world for the clips.
With that done, Stein got a film crew to capture new material to flesh out his movie. Drummer Keith Moon turned out to be a documentarian's dream. A madman party animal around the clock, Moon led Stein and his crew a merry chase through Malibu Beach, dressing up as a pirate, being interviewed in full bondage gear while being whipped, and getting in a food fight with a naked woman who leapt out of his birthday cake.
For his finale, Stein needed film of The Who's show-stopping anthem "Won't Get Fooled Again." A concert before an invited audience at the end of 1977 turned into a bust as the band, rusty after more than a year off the road, was erratic and lackluster. Stein cajoled The Who into another try, this one at Shepperton Studios in May 1978. The band's anger that they were forced to play the song again was channeled into their performance, giving Stein the white-hot rendition of The Who's set closer he needed for his climax.
That performance and the movie itself gained new meaning on September 7, 1978 when Keith Moon was found dead from an overdose of prescription medication. His performance at Shepperton was his last with The Who and The Kids Are Alright automatically turned from a fan's tribute into The Who's eulogy.
The Who continued, of course, with new drummer Kenney Jones taking Moon's seat in time for the movie's premiere at Cannes in May 1979. The band was good but it was not the same. The original Who, considered by many the greatest live act of all time, managed to survive just long enough to be captured for The Kids Are Alright.
Producer: Bill Curbishley, Tony Klinger, Sydney Rose, Ed Rothkowitz
Director: Jeff Stein
Screenplay: Jeff Stein
Cinematography: Peter Nevard, Anthony B. Richmond, Norman Warwick, Norman Wexler
Film Editing: Ed Rothkowitz
Music: John Entwistle, Keith Moon
Cast: Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Pete Townshend, Tom Smothers, Jimmy O'Neill.
BW&C-101m. Letterboxed.
by Brian Cady
