This is a kind of “Hollywood goes to Frankie” thread. A few reflections about the peculiar relationship between the glamorous film industry and the magical world of popular music.
It all began at the weekend when @mikethep posted a clip of early 1960s chart topper Helen Shapiro. What an extraordinary voice she had and what a meteoric jump to the top of the charts.
That led me to the discovery that Richard Lester had made a film in 1962 It’s Trad, Dad starring Helen and Stranger on the Shore Hitmaker, Acker Bilk. (The first Brit to top the US singles chart.) Lester received a thousand quid for a movie with a flimsy plot but a wide variety of performances. It turned out however to be a real snapshot of its time. And it landed him the gig, directing the two Beatles movies.
Anyway, that is how I would like this thread to be. Unbelievable plot. Wooden acting. But several rather enjoyable musical interludes.
What do One Direction, Status Quo, The Pet Shop Boys, Madness, The Beatles, All Saints, Herman’s Hermits, S Club Seven, Cliff and the Shadows and the Dave Clark Five have in common?
They have all starred in feature-length films playing themselves or a thinly disguised version of themselves. Such bandwagon-hopping films were particularly popular in the 60s but have by no means died out.
The cinema industry and the music biz are like a couple who are really not so good together, but cannot keep their hands off each other.
That love story has led to moments of weirdness. Wilco and Ed Sheeran having bit parts in GoT. Or Devo appearing in a 1982 apocalyptic movie, Human Highway e co-directed by Neil Young using the nom de film Bernard Shakey.
But also many moments of magic: To take just one, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire.
These are the kind of things I would like to hear about.
But let us kick off with the UK’s first real pop star, Mozambique-born crooner Al Bowlly. That wise man, Richard Thompson, wrote a song about him; Al Bowlly’s in heaven.
Kaisfatdad says
That song about Al from Richard Thompson’s album Daring Adventures. A cracker!
It was one of three albums produced by Mitchell Froom.
From the sublime to…. what must have been a vanity project. A feature film starring the Quo.
All done very tongue-in-cheek, thank goodness.
Acker was of course from Somerset….
Bent Fabric was a Danish jazzer”
hubert rawlinson says
Don’t know if you can receive this where you are but there are some excellent bits in their schedule.
Vera Lynn today but alas I missed it, though I did see Margaret Rutherford in Dusty Ermine. (That’s the film not The Stoat in Winter {as opposed to the Lion in Winter})
https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/schedule/
Avoid Cuckoo Patrol though.
Kaisfatdad says
It is probably a good thing that I cannot receive TPTV here, Hubert. I would spend all day watching forgotten gems. Fun to spend a few minutes having a browse about what’s in the pipeline though.
I bet that Ola & Julia turns up on Swedish daytime. Nice work Locust! I think that is Ola and the Janglers’ first appearance on the AW. Googled. That was not their only movie. Here they are at a “folkpark”, IT does not get more Swedish.
That Parker clip was very amusing, Iggy. Hats off to GP for taking part.
hubert rawlinson says
There were quite a few 30s films with a thin plot line that showcased various variety/music hall acts.
And who can forget the two stars of 40s cinema Gracie Fields and George Formby?
Kaisfatdad says
You are on to something intersting there,@hubert rawlinson. The film studios had devised a model for a vehicle a popular singer or group, which they continued to use at the beginning of the 60s.
And then along came the independent stars of the 60s, and everything had to be rethought-
But let’s go back to Mr Formby! What a card!
“Look at the cheeky fashcats, dancing in their knickers!”
Locust says
Well, there’s always Ola & Julia; a Swedish film from 1967 starring Ola & The Janglers’ frontman Ola Håkansson as – surprise, surprise – a pop star (himself) on tour with his band (as themselves) who meets an actress (on tour with a play by Samuel Beckett) at the hotel they’re all staying at that night, and they fall in love.
Made by no other than director Janne Halldoff, written by him and Stig “Slas” Claesson and also starring Bengt Ekerot; best known as the chess-playing Death in “The Seventh Seal” by Bergman… 🙂
I couldn’t find a clip from the actual film (which I can’t remember if I’ve seen myself, but probably not), but I found a rather awful song from the sopundtrack (written by the band):
Iggypop1 says
Wilson Wilson says
E from Eels was in this too, although he didn’t make the final cut:
Kaisfatdad says
You can’t beat a cameo by a local musician to establish atmosphere. Here’s Byron Lee singing Jump Up in Dr No. Island Records boss Chris Blackwell can be glimpsed frugging away at 0.24 according to the comments.
Nat King Cole’s song of the same name plays an important role in Fritz Lang’s Blue Gardenia from 1953. Lang treats us to the whole song which Natfans must have been delighted about.
The beefy guy on the date is Raymond Ironside Burr.
davebigpicture says
Sir Lancelot In I Walked With A Zombie
The song eventually morphed into this more jolly version by Madness
Kaisfatdad says
That Sir Lancelot clip is marvellous @DaveBigPicture.
He had a long movie career.
http://thefilmbufflouie.blogspot.com/2017/11/sir-lancelot.html
BrilliantMistake says
A featurette on The Ghost Goes Gear, the Spencer Davis Group movie that, despite co-starring Nicholas Parsons, caused Steve Winwood to create Traffic in the countryside.
Kaisfatdad says
I’d never heard of this 60s classic. Easy to understand the band members looking back and thinking: why did we do that??
I was convinced that Jerry Garcia had had a walk-on role as a busker in the 1987 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It seems I was wrong: it was just his music that was used.
But he was very interested in the movies and contributed to many soundtracks.
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2015/05/jerry-garcias-film-soundtracks.html
Kaisfatdad says
If there is a scene in a club, it provides a great chance for a cameo. Like the Yardbirds in Antonioni’s Blow Up, who got the gig when the director’s first choice, The Velvet Underground, proved to be too expensive.
Over to California for a nightclub visit with Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls where the Strawberry Alarm Clock make an appearance.
Time for a cameo of Dona Dumitru Siminica in a Bucharest nightclub. What a voice! The ladies in the audience are in ecstasy.
A quick detour. I stumbled across this very witty piece on the difficulty of filming nightclub scenes. 18 years old but still true today.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/sep/29/culture.features2
moseleymoles says
I am all over this thread, one of my special subjects. You#’re looking for a band cameo to add cool and atmosphere no?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-o39BJ0Aww
moseleymoles says
But the very idea that just by shoehorning in some band your film will be cooler and more atmospheric is ridiculous right?
moseleymoles says
If only this nightclub had had a metaldetector all this nastiness could have been avoided:
moseleymoles says
Best not to get the band to do any actual acting though:
‘Oill check the petral station’
Moose the Mooche says
The agreeably crappy horror movie The Deadly Bees opens with a cameo from Ronnie Wood’s mod also-rans The Birds. Pretty good I’d say.
Kaisfatdad says
The IMDB synopsis would get me dashing off to the local fleapit:
“Trouble strikes when an exhausted pop singer, sent on a vacation to a farm, realizes that the farm’s owner grows deadly bees. ”
It looks like the bees’ knees!
Nowadays it’s The Deadly Insecticides! The poor bees don’t have a chance.
moseleymoles says
Finally there’s always the WTF element to musicians in films.
Ok I can see how Rihanna as a shape-shifting poledancing alien broadens the demographic and is on brand. But HERBIE FREAKIN HANCOCK AKA SOME SIXTIES JAZZ DUDE giving it his best Lauren Fishburne as the Defence Minister….not just once, in some studio handshake deal but in half a dozen scenes, just WTF. Riri is in this trailer for about a second, HH not so much
Kaisfatdad says
Moles on a roll! Those clips will be difficult to follow.
The Flaming Saddles one was particularly excellent.
Kaisfatdad says
A couple of examples now of music makers making use of the skills of thespians.
Vincent giving Michael a little something extra.
And now Richard Burton giving a masterclass in the use of spoken word in a pop music context.
H G Well’s fine novel must have been a delight to work with,
moseleymoles says
Some blink and you’ll miss em – Red Hot Anthony Keidis in Point Break
moseleymoles says
Bo Diddley in Trading Places – great casting
Kaisfatdad says
Marvellous! Sometimes a cameo is just an opportunity to have a lot of fun.
Britney Spears really wanted to be in the third Austin Powers film, wearing a bullet-shooting bra,
An offer that could not be refused.
moseleymoles says
And Afterword fav Tom Petty going full postapocalypto in The Postmen. Have to admit to not actually watching this all the way through or indeed much beyond the clip, but hey we can guess…
Rigid Digit says
Tenacious D – The Pick Of Destiny.
Personally, I think the film stretched the joke a bit too far
But Dave Grohl did reprise his role as an overacted Beelzebub (previously seen in the video for “Tribute”)
Kaisfatdad says
Very silly. but it was quite amusing.
Beelzebub had a slightly different look in 1967. Time for some Drimble Wedge and the Vegetation.
Rigid Digit says
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains
Also featuring Ray Winstone as lead singer of The Looters, a UK punk band on tour featuring Paul Simonen, Steve Jones and Paul Cook
Alias says
In the 1970s French movie Les Stances A Sophie there is a ridiculous scene in a disco where the revellers are dancing to the seriously out there Theme De YoYo. The Art Ensemble De Chicago put in a appearance later on. They did write the soundtrack after all.
Kaisfatdad says
Trust you to come up with a corker like that, @Alias. Classy!
Sometimes these cameos have something of a fanboy/fangirl feeling about them. And nothing wrong with that.
The rather wonderful appearance of Wilson Philips in the final scene of Bridesmaids is a good example of that.
The band’s record sales increased by 600 %. Girl power rules!!
Kaisfatdad says
Sparks played two songs, Big Boy and Fill er Up, in the 1977 disaster movie Rollercoaster, They described it later as the biggest regret of their career.
They’d just returned to the States and were trying to establish themselves. This was just prior to meeting Moroder and recording hits like Number 1 song in Heaven.
If we are talking about the Maels and movies, this project deserves to be named.
They also tried to get a film off the ground.
Kaisfatdad says
There is rather a lot about the cinephile Maels I did not know about. I have just discovered that they met with Jaques Tati and were discussing doing a film, Confusion, with him.
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/when_sparks_met_comedy_genius_jacques_tati
Here is a little more about all their enormous efforts to get manga, Mai the Psychic Girl, made into a film.
https://www.slashfilm.com/tim-burton-going-back-to-mai-the-psychic-girl/
It was one of the first mangas to be published in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai,_the_Psychic_Girl
Kaisfatdad says
That Sir Lancelot zombie song reminded me that there are some movies that have a singer or band or a band providing a “narration”.
Here’s a blast from my teenage past: Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole doing just that in Cat Ballou which starred Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. It was filmed in 1965 the year Nat died.
Here is Jonathan Richman doing some narrating a few years later in Something about Mary.
mikethep says
My mate Tony Priestland played sax in a program band called Titus Groan, who put out a couple of albums on the ill-fated Dawn label. They got the obligatory band in a club gig in a truly awful sexploitation flick called Permissive, which came out in 1970. You’ll spot him if you can stick it out to 2:14…
mikethep says
Prog band! 🙄
Kaisfatdad says
What is the AW coming to? We are now expected to sit through two minutes of gratuitous pornography to catch a few seconds of prog tootling.
That trailer is wonderful. Little Britain did such a great job of satirising that style of horrified Daily Telegraph reader voice over.
Kaisfatdad says
It really is a lot of fun searching for these lesser known cameo appearances. Like James Brown in Ski Party in 1965.
Kaisfatdad says
String-driven-things in Swinging London. A rather unusual cameo from Cliff and the Shads.
Morrison says
Norman Wisdom goes psychedelic…
Introducing the Electric Banana – aka the Pretty Things – in a groovy club scene in a very strange late 1960s film where Norm goes off the rails having picked up a couple of young hitchhikers en route to a banking convention in Southport. Not sure what Mr Grimsdale would have said…
Bizarrely, I was there! – sadly not in the “club” scene but we watched from afar while they were filming exterior scenes outside the once very grand but now demolished Palace Hotel. My joy was short lived as my brother – possibly excited at seeing Sally Geeson – slammed the car door of our Austin Cambridge on my hand. Some of you may recall that this fine example of British motor manufacturing was built like a battleship and those doors were heavy. The day ended in Southport infirmary.
Needless to say I’ve been dining out on this anecdote for decades…
Kaisfatdad says
The Screaming Apple Discotheque in sinful Southport! That was peachy, Morrison.
And I have just discovered there is a fruity story about The Electric Banana, the alias that the Pretties used for that appearance.
http://wearecult.rocks/electric-banana-unpeeled
Kaisfatdad says
I had not realised that Games of Thrones had a tradition of having a musician or band doing a cameo every season. Two Icelandic bands, Of Monsters and Men and Sigur Ros, have paid a visit to Westeros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61RnXNv1H5Y