That'll Be The Day (1973)

Rock 'n' Roll,Jazz and Skiffle.They were the musical choices facing teenage boys in the mid 1950s.The ones who spent a lot of time in their rooms reading quietly and listening to the wireless tended towards jazz,tortured intellectuals who who wanted to ban the bomb and carry washboards beneath their duffel coats preferred skiffle,and those with a healthy interest in sex picked up their Hofners and tried to knock out "Be -bop a Lula". Jim Mclaine certainly falls within the latter category and is a "Bad Boy" before his time.With an over - protective single mother,he drops out from his Grammar School and drifts around the south coast before taking up with a Funfair.Here he cements the reputation of fairworkers as careless Lotharios. Altrhough capable of charm when necessary,he is in fact rather an unpleasant boy whose rejection of his mother is reflected in his conduct towards his sexual conquests. Mr D.Essex manages the difficult task of portraying both sides of his character and making them seem convincing. The movie rather sweetly captures the era of Post - Suez optimism when we could ride our bicycles around the streets without being shot at by warring gangs and hang around town centres without being watched warily by policemen in full body armour carrying gas spray cans. Jim wants to be a rock'n'roll star and makes the irrevocable step in the last scene of the movie where he goes into a music shop and is handed a guitar. Of course it turned out that rock'n'roll was not here to stay after all and only ageing ex - Teds and OAP bikers listen to Jim's kind of music any more as it proceeded to morph into "Rock" and all its sub - divisions of guitar widdle. To see how Jim coped (or failed to cope) with that you must watch "Stardust",the brilliant follow - up to this movie,but "That'll be the day" - in its own right - is a highly enjoyable movie and a wallow in nostalgia for those of us who wish it was still 1958.

David Essex stars in the first of two films about Jimmy Maclaine, a young man who wants to be a rock star. Here we follow Maclaine as his father comes home from the war, leaves his family and Maclaine grows up, running away from home as a teen to make his future in the world, first by the sea, then at a holiday camp and finally in a carnival. Eventually he returns home to start his own family. Slice of life in late 50's early 60's as rock music was shaking everything up and the post war kids were looking for a way out. I had always heard this was the better of the two Maclaine films (Stardust being the second) but I wasn't really impressed. For what ever reason I couldn't really connect with what was happening on screen. Perhaps I was waiting for something the film isn't, the sequel charts Maclaine's rise and fall as a pop star, so I was waiting for a music film instead of a family drama and character study (come on you have Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Dave Edmunds in the cast don't you think it'll be a music film?). On some level it made watching the sequel better, but ultimately it wasn't something I need to see again. You may feel differently since the film isn't bad, just one that I didn't connect to.

especially about "Stardust" As much as I admire "That'll be the Day", the sequel is even better, one of the finest movies about rock music ever made, yet it has never been released on video in any form (at least in the US). It's on my "most wanted list".For those who haven't seen it, it plays on the rock star mythology only hinted at by the final scene of "That'l be the day" and shows Jim's hedonistic rise as a musician, his career encapsulating both the ambitions and the pretensions of the period. Surprisingly - oh, I guess this counts as a "spoiler' - Connolly and crew didn't leave much room for a trilogy here.

ITV have just shown the Jim Maclaine(David Essex) films of which this is the first and Stardust is the second and as an avid supporter and fan of sixties and seventies British cinema i thought i had to check it out.It doesn't disappoint with its gritty evocation of a fifties childhood with a lack of a father figure. Jim then turns to the Rock and Roll world when he buys a guitar from a pawn shop at the end. His rise and fall is taken up in Stardust with Adam Faith taking the Ringo Starr role as Mike.Great, forgotten film with superior performances from Essex and Ringo Starr and a good cameo from Keith Moon and Billy Fury.