“Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball, From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all, But I ain’t seen nothin’ like him, In any amusement hall, That deaf, dumb and blind kid, Sure plays a mean pinball.”
I was first introduced to The Who through the original Tommy album. It was one of my mother’s favorites when I was young, and she had actually written out by hand her interpretation of the story the rock opera appeared to tell. I can’t remember those scribblings, and I’m not even sure if they’re still tucked away in that Decca album I have around here somewhere. But the music always stayed with me. Now, I didn’t ever become a huge fan of the band. I always liked them and collected a couple of their albums over the years. I did play a lot of pinball, however. I fell more in with the likes of Elton John. So you can imagine how excited I was in the summer of 1975 when my favorite musician was cast to play the Pinball Wizard in a movie from the music that had been stuck in my head for years. And while the soundtrack version has been the version I’ve often found stuck in my head, the original album was never far away either. Apparently that’s also the case with Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey. They would reunite and perform the rock opera live celebrating the release’s 50th anniversary. Now the film is also celebrating 50 years. I sure feel old. But watching Tommy again sure brought a childhood of memories flooding back in. Shout Factory delivered.
“He stands like a statue, becomes part of the machine. Feeling all the bumpers always playing clean. He plays by intuition, the digit counters fall. That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pin ball!”
The movie and rock opera tells the story of a young boy who is witness to the killing of his father by his mother (Margaret) and her lover (Reed) when he returns from war after being presumed dead. Of course, they drill into him that he didn’t see it, didn’t hear it and won’t ever say a word. Tommy overcompensates and he becomes a child who is now deaf, dumb and blind. The couple take him to all kinds of help: a faith healer, played by guitarist extraordinaire Eric Clapton, an “Acid Queen”, played by Tina Turner, and even a doctor, played by Jack Nicholson. Nothing works until Tommy wanders into a salvage yard and right into a classic pinball machine. He becomes a world phenom and takes out the champ, played by Elton John in 6-foot boots. When Tommy does finally become aware, he uses his stardom to create a cult, and the story churns swiftly from cult hero to deposed tyrant, and roll the end credits.
“Well, he ain’t got no distractions, Can’t hear no buzzers and bells, Don’t see lights a-flashing, He plays by sense of smell, Always has a replay, Never tilts at all, That deaf, dumb and blind kid, Sure plays a mean pinball”
The movie was actually the 3third incarnation of the music. After the Decca LP, Townsend recorded an event with the London Philharmonic Orchestra that never quite broke out like the album did. He resisted a film version, believing the story was too thin for a film. The band’s manager Kit Lambert thought otherwise and wrote a spec script to show Townsend the potential. He also brought in Michael Carreras from Hammer studios as a possible production partner and hoped to direct the film himself. Robert Stigwood, who would go on to produce a film of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s, rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar offered to finance the film with a partnership at Columbia Pictures, where the film ended up being directed by Ken Russell. Townsend finally agreed if he could add some new material. The end result were a couple of new songs and extra verses and such for other songs like the famous Pinball Wizard number. He insisted that real musicians and singers would be involved and partially won that battle, getting Clapton, Turner, and Elton John on board, but the studio insisted on bankable stars to play Tommy’s mother and her lover. Ann Margaret and Oliver Reed filled that condition and are the worst parts of the film. I didn’t notice it as a kid, because I was too busy waiting for Elton and his pinball antics to notice, but both Margaret and Reed are horrible in the parts. Their voices I now find cringe-worthy, and it takes the film down a few notches for me.
The entire band, The Who, are the background musicians when a band was shown on stage like the Pinball Wizard segment, even though it was Elton’s staple musicians like Dee, Davey and Nigel who played the real music. the entire film was lip-synched, but it only shows a couple of times. Keith Moon doubles not only as the house drummer, but the truly creepy Wicked Uncle Ernie. Moon died young as a result of his party lifestyle, but this film is his monument and legacy. Moon, the Loon (as he was affectionately known by fans) passed away at just 32 years of age, just three years after Tommy was released at the box office. Ironically, it was an overdose of a drug he was taking to try to beat his alcoholic self-destruction that killed him. Moon was just 32 when he played Uncle Ernie, but I swear he looks 50 in the film. Huge loss.
John Mosley was a renowned musical engineer at the time and came up with a 5-speaker idea he called Quintaphonic Sound. Tommy was the first … and last … film to use the process. Of course, Surround Sound was a couple of decades away. Now the film has been resurrected in 4K, but there’s a lot of good and bad to be found here. My childhood memories are higher than the current reality, but there is still magic here. You just have to look for it. And maybe a little more polishing was in order.
Video
Tommy is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The ultra-high-definition 2160p image is arrived at by an HEVC codec with an awesome average bitrate of 80-85 mbps. The source material is 35mm, so it is native 4K. The ultra high definition gets most of its bump from textures in the details. This is a very textured world, and the UHD release is far more accurate in those fine details. The colors match the film stock from the 70’s and give us momentary flashes of vivid colors and textures. Oliver Reed’s green suite at the Holiday Camp is a fine example. There’s a lot of white here, particularly during the new song Champagne, followed by some rather unsettling liquids that look even worse, so actually good here. Black levels are sometimes murky, and I think some of the grain has been filtered. Maybe a tad too much DNR here, but it is fairly faithful to the 1975 theatrical experience. The Pinball Wizard segment is particularly bright and flashy. Damn, does Elton look young here. I saw him during the recent farewell tour, my third farewell tour show over the decades, and time sure has taken a toll. Catch him in his prime here. That segment alone is worth the purchase.
Audio
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is disappointing. That’s not good for a musical where all of the dialog is sung. There’s nice clarity here, but the band behind the singers always sounds far away and comes through like source music from a standard audio presentation. They simply don’t share the same sonic space, and I’m not sure why. This early experimentation with five channels should make for an awesome modern presentation, but it really doesn’t. The subs don’t support the music at all, and it falls flat throughout. The crisp deliveries are there, to be sure, but it might have something to do with the compatible nature of the original process. Stereo actually works with a more dynamic delivery, but loses the immersion qualities. The 5.0 Quintaphonic choice is better, to be sure, but it misses the real bottom presentation. My feelings are a bit mixed here, and I intend to experiment again with other receiver settings, because I believe it’s there; I may not be calibrated to best bring it out. But now I’m on a mission, so my real rating here is an incomplete, but I wanted to get this out to you timed with the release. Look for a later update.
Special Features
No extras are found on either disc. I’m OK with that, because I would rather see all that bandwidth go to the feature, and it does.
Final Thoughts:
“Even on my favorite table he can beat my best. His disciples lead him in and he just does the rest. He’s got crazy flipper fingers never seen him fall. That deaf dumb and blind kind sure plays a mean pinball!!!”
What young 1970’s pup, learning to play a guitar for the first time, didn’t, at one time or another, attempt to imitate Pete Townsend’s windmill power chord strum? I count myself in that group. While I was not a very dedicated Who fan, I had an appreciation for the musicianship. There were still songs like Pinball Wizard that I would embrace as if they were my own anthems in those days. It would be hard to deny that The Who is one of the most successful rock bands in history. Part of the original British Invasion of the 1960’s, there are few such acts that are even still around, let alone able to fill the huge stadiums and halls of rock’s yesteryear. Their songs have become anthems, and their antics have become legend. The band wrote the soundtrack for an entire generation, and proudly touted the fact in aptly named song My Generation. Banned from all Holiday Inns at one time for their well-publicized trashing of rooms, they weren’t any easier on their own instruments. Smashing their instruments and amps on stage became a staple, for a while, of the whole Who experience. The Pinball Wizard segment gives you a taste of those infamous antics. They’ve inspired a legion of superstars, and now after more than 40 years of rocking, they soldier on. Their influence goes beyond just rock music. All three of the CSI franchise shows sport Who songs for their opening credit sequences. They’ve been lampooned on South Park and The Simpsons. They were once referred to as The Band That Wouldn’t Go Away, and that was more than 30 years ago. And that guy Tommy? “That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.”
