There are a few moments in the history of The Rolling Stones that I wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall for, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the one I would most like to sit in on probably doesn’t have any of the actual band members in it.
It occurred in 1968, when the execs who’d given the band and a production company a ton of money to make a Rolling Stones motion picture all got together in a Soho screening room to watch the finished product. I can only imagine the backslapping and self-satisfaction in that room prior to the projector starting up. A bunch of men in suits that cost more than your car, convinced they’ve got a surefire hit on their hands, and they’re all going to be cumming money until the 1980s at least. Because surely, this is exactly what they asked for, right?
This film is just A Hard Day’s Night but with The Rolling Stones, right? Sure, it’ll be a little bit different, the movie was made four years after the Fabs’ knockabout comedy larks, and the world was a very different place than it was then. It’ll essentially provide the same service, though, some larks and fun for the teeny boppers to watch their favourite pop stars get up to some shenanigans with. Perhaps with a little more sex and salaciousness, as The Stones were a little more dangerous, but beyond that, fun for all the family? Right?
Then the picture was screened. One of the execs had brought along their wife to see the film, and she vomited in shock. Their money had been spent not on A Hard Day’s Night but with Jagger, Richards and chums, but on a surreal, violent crime thriller that – well, it was a little more sexual than A Hard Day’s Night, as they expected, but they probably weren’t expecting it to feature bisexuality, gender fluidity and threesomes between the main cast members.
Because this wasn’t a knockabout romp. This was Performance, and if it was any consolation to those scandalised suits, it wasn’t really going down any better in the Stones’ camp either.
Why did ‘Performance’ nearly split up The Rolling Stones?
Now, to be clear, on the one hand, the finished article of Performance was exactly the kind of film The Stones wanted it to be. The trouble was everything else. The Rolling Stones weren’t a great place to be in 1968. Brian Jones was in the process of systematically Syd Barrett-ing himself into an early grave. The cops, the taxman and the English press had each made The Stones public enemy number one. Then Jagger took the lead role in this picture, and the role of his girlfriend was given to Anita Pallenberg.
This should have been inspired casting. Pallenberg was exactly the kind of cool that Jagger was, a style icon and high-profile model/actress of the era. The problem was that Anita Pallenberg had a high-profile boyfriend in real life. Who might that be, I hear you ask? Why, that would be Rolling Stones guitarist and lifelong Mick Jagger frenemy, Keith Richards. It was bad enough that Pallenberg and Jagger would be playing romantic partners. When Richards heard that directors by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg were filming unsimulated sex scenes between his girlfriend and his singer, he took to spending entire shooting days sat in his car outside the shooting location.
To make matters worse, this made the chances of a full-on Rolling Stones album as the film’s soundtrack vanishingly thin. Jagger and Richards were barely talking during the production. As the band’s core creative partnership, this was a problem. Only one Jagger/Richards original made it onto the movie’s soundtrack, and, in true Stones fashion, it’s one of their best songs of the late 1960s. ‘Memo From Turner’ points to a tantalising what might have been if a full album had been made to soundtrack Performance.
The film was shelved in disgust in 1968, but by 1970, the world had darkened sufficiently for its release. It was still not a hit by any stretch, but it has since gone down as a cult classic and one of the best British crime gangster flicks ever. I’m sure if you explained that to Keith Richards at the time, he would have completely understood and perhaps even embraced being cucked by his own lead singer. Maybe.
Performance - Theatrical Trailer
Performance - Soundtrack - Randy Newman and ensemble - Gone Dead Train
. . . .still a favourite track
I don’t know how many times I have watched this film and even sought out the houses featured in London used in it.
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