Tommy (1975)

Director: Ken Russell
Writer: Ken Russell, based on the Rock Opera by Pete Townshend with additional material by John Entwistle and Keith Moon
Stars: Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Roger Daltrey and Elton John

Index: The First Thirty.

Regular readers will know I’m hardly a huge fan of musicals, but the ones I tend to enjoy do one of two things. Either the songs make sense from a story standpoint, like Singin’ in the Rain, or the entire movie is sung, like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. This follows the latter approach.

Also, it’s a psychedelic rock opera that was written by Pete Townshend; performed by the Who and very special guests; and directed by Ken Russell right before Lisztomania, so there’s plenty for me to enjoy. As I haven’t seen it in decades, my wonder going in was whether I’d adore it or despise it. What I wasn’t expecting was to end up somewhere in between the two.

Then again, I have mixed feelings about the Who. When they’re good they’re amazing, but not everything works and I was reminded very much of that in the early scenes here, which I enjoyed far more for Russell’s visual style than for the music behind it.

It’s all impressionistic and there’s no Roger Daltrey yet as his character must be conceived and born and mature before he can show up. So Robert Powell and Ann-Margret picnic on a mountain top, frolic in a waterfall and dance in an empty hall. He’s in uniform by then and we hear their phone ring even if we don’t hear the bad news it brings. We don’t get dialogue that’s spoken but we do get sounds.

It’s almost like Russell, who wrote the script and directed the film, really didn’t care about any of the music, which he didn’t. He was very much a classical music buff, hence his biopics of composers. He didn’t like rock music at all, making it a grand irony that I encountered his son’s work before his, Xavier Russell being the southern rock specialist for Kerrang! magazine.

However, Xavier’s father was an impeccable visual stylist and this relies even more on the visuals than the music, especially this early in the film. It’s all choreographed like it’s a dance routine, to the degree that scenes often merge together, characters moving from one to the next without cuts, even popping up in front of the camera like meerkats to seize the focus.

And we learn everything visually. Powell is Group Captain Walker, a fighter pilot who’s shot down in World War II. Ann-Margret is Nora, filling shells in a factory. She gives birth after her husband dies and the Remembrance Day poppies remind that it isn’t just her.

Except he’s still alive and eventually comes home. It’s been five years so she’s moved on to marry Oliver Reed, a holiday camp greencoat who comes home with her and Tommy. When Walker finally returns, seriously burned, it’s so much of a shock that “Uncle Frank” lashes out and kills him. Tommy sees it, but it’s the last thing he sees because, from this point on, he’s psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind.

This is the most crucial scene in the movie and it’s only fifteen minutes in, but it allows Russell an awful lot of creative freedom, which he fully embraces, hurling us into an animated sequence with bombers shot into poppy laden crosses and kaleidoscopic equivalents to Busby Berkeley dance routines using mirrors. After watching this as intended, I went back to watch a lot of it with the sound off and it has arguably even more impact that way.

Of course, the music is there and welcome but the songs are inconsistent. Tommy, Can You Hear Me is quirky. There’s a bit of See Me, Feel Me, even a snippet of Silent Night. We just don’t need any of it in Russell’s head.

And boom, Tommy grows up. He’s still deaf, dumb and blind but now he’s Roger Daltrey, a Christ figure even before Russell hurls us into a service with the Who performing live behind Arthur Brown as the Priest and Eric Clapton as the Preacher. He always enjoyed blasphemy in his films and here he sets up Marilyn Monroe as a rock ’n’ roll Saint Bernadette of Lourdes.

Suddenly there are guest stars everywhere. Tina Turner is acutely dangerous as the Acid Queen, trying to save Tommy through sex and drugs. She turns into a robot iron maiden with syringes over her body like Pinhead’s pins and Daltrey is even more Christ-like as he loses his virginity. Snakes, skulls and poppies, sex and bones wrapped up in acid drenched religion. It must be a Ken Russell movie!

There’s Elton John as the Pinball Wizard in a ridiculously large pair of platform boots, with Tommy challenging him for his throne. This is the film not the album so he gets to sing that famous song and it’s a strong version.

And there, finally, an hour into the movie, is Jack Nicholson, as the Specialist, a doctor who can supposedly cure Tommy. Spoiler: he kinda sorta does. He certainly points the way to the cure and nobody else in this movie gets close. Then again, he’s a doctor. He ought to do a lot better than a drug-dealing hooker, right?

It isn’t a particularly large part, though it’s a lot more substantial than a cameo. What’s odd, especially given some of the movies he’d made thus far, is that Nicholson underplays his role more than almost everybody else in the cast. It isn’t a subtle movie, but he plays the Specialist that way, not quite as subdued as David in The King of Marvin Gardens but not far from it.

Of course, Tommy gave him another scene with Ann-Margret but it’s a very different one to anything in Carnal Knowledge and, this time, she was the one getting the attention. Frankly, she’s the best reason anywhere in the cast to watch Tommy, and she threw herself into Nora Walker, regardless of whatever weirdness the director wanted her to do. Literally writhe in whatever shit the television commercials are hawking? Sure, why not? After all, a lot of this movie takes place in characters’ heads.

She was the film’s major nominee, winning a Golden Globe but losing the Oscar to Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Yes, Nicholson won too but for that, not this. As he had another film to make before that one, it’s a strong reminder both how many great films were being made at the time and how many of them featured these two.

There’s a lot more to the story, with Tommy eventually cured and leading a cult of his own, the messianic angle the main reason that drew Ken Russell to the project. It doesn’t hurt that the best songs show up at this point: I’m Free, We’re Not Gonna Take It and Listening to You for a start. It’s almost like the Who seized their film back from Russell but the director wrapped it up with a neat bookend to get the final word.

While I like some of these songs, ultimately this is a Ken Russell movie with Ann-Margret.