The iconic rock opera Tommy (1975) recently came across my TV screen. Avante-garde during the era of avante-garde (at least as I recall), it explores the world of Tommy (Roger Daltrey), the son of a missing World War II hero, who loses his faculties after his mother’s new husband apparently attacks the returned hero with a lamp, killing him.
Or maybe not, as the new husband, played by Oliver Reed, suffers no consequences, legal or marital; his wife, played by the illustrious Ann-Margaret, appears to accept him and his occasional violence. The exact nature of the incident, like much of the rest of the film, is speculative at best. We see Tommy as the pinball wizard who beats Elton John in a competition, and subsequently recovers his faculties, much to the relief of his long-suffering mother. From thereon he leads a spiritual revival centering around pinball machines and the outcasts of society: cripples and motorcycle gangs, apparently. In the climactic final scene, his mother and step-father are apparently murdered as he sings lyrics of no artistic merit, so bereft they are of metaphor, simile, or indeed anything but straightforward direction (a literature teacher might shake their fist at the screen and yell, “Show! Don’t tell!”). This is in direct contrast to the movie itself, where every scene is quite striking, if also mystifying to one degree or another, and may serve as a metaphor for something else; but it’s difficult to say just what. As I say, it’s avant-garde, experimental, and like much such work, incomprehensible.
All that said, it did strike me that Ann-Margaret shows real acting chops in this flick, and of course Oliver Reed is Oliver Reed. Roger Daltrey is certainly an attractive dude, and he can act OK, but his singing was undistinguished at best, and he was burdened with bad lyrics. The music itself drones on and on, and it’s a little difficult to believe Peter Townshend was nominated for an Oscar for that work.
My Arts Editor’s Review of Tommy: WTF?
