30 years on, what are you thought on Paul McCartney's - Broadstreet film?

Here it the complete "Give my Regards to Broad Street." Give it a look and tell us what you think.. If you've seen it give it a fresh watch.

 

I love it, no one else does. A childhood favourite.

 

Still crap

 

I have a DVD of it, it's been years since I've seen it, pretty weak as I recall. Years ago I read a review of the project suggesting that rather than having released it as a feature film, it could have initially been released as a series of individual music videos. The videos could then have been issued with the non-musical parts to tie the story together. The writer believed that the result would have been met with high praise for such a ground-breaking idea.

 

It is a crap film. But it does have its charm. It's VERY of the time it was made.

Watching it though and I'm 14 years old again. It does give me a funny warm feeling and makes me realise I miss being a kid.

So it has THAT, at least

 

I remember seeing this in the theater with all of my favorite friend.

 

It could have been worse, easily.

 

Filth.

 

Makes better sense now.

 

Not easily, IMO! Some of the musical numbers are enjoyable but that's about it!

Give My Regards To Broad Street (1984) »

 

Isn't the story just this?

Tapes for the album go missing, look for the tapes, sing some songs, do some more looking. Then, 90 minutes later, realise the tapes are in an old toilet right under our noses? End of film.

 

1. There could have been much less musical numbers and much more hack script writing.
2. The musical numbers could have been shown as only short fragments of the songs.
3. The musical numbers could have been shown within a context of a concert where they cut to showing the audience for the majority of the time, and insert lengthy fan interviews gushing about how great McCartney is, or celebrity heads talking about his cultural influence.
4. The whole film could have been edited so no one shot lasts more than 2-5 seconds long.

There are four examples right off the top of my head that would be very easy to make this film worse. That three of them are also common ways McCartney regularly allows his video releases to be made unwatchable, we can at least be slightly grateful that wasn't done in Broadstreet too.

 

Never have cared for it except the "No Values" and "Not Such a Bad Boy" scenes. I love the track, "No More Lonely Nights".

 

Rebuttal argument - case closed!

 

Broad Street is worth staying through its flimsy plot for the music; well, maybe not the '80's update of "Silly Love Songs" or the sexaphone drenched "Long and Winding Road" or especially "Eleanor's Dream", which stops the film dead in its tracks but definitely for the extended "Ballroom Dancing" and the warehouse rehearsal sequence. Hell, the other Beatles covers which Paul got crap for are tastefully done.

And let's not forget its special attraction, Rupert and the Frog Song.



(Oh, and in case you want to see the Linda shorts from the Frog Song VHS,
Linda McCartney & Wings - Seaside Woman »
THE ORIENTAL NIGHTFISH from the imagination IAN EMES »)

 

I watched it as a child with my parents, and quite enjoyed it. No desire to see it again though. But from what I recall, it seemed like a roman a clef about Paul's lawsuit against Allen Klein. I've long believed, Yoko didn't break up the Beatles, Allen Klein did, and judging from this movie, I think Paul blamed Klein as well.

 

I agree, an absolute, utter piece of crap. If anybody thought that Magical Mystery Tour was just an unfortunate accident, take a look at Broad Street. It's the same bad kind of filmmaking with awful story-telling, stupid acting, and terrible direction. Great music in both. I even like some of McCartney's remakes in Broad Street.

BTW, the entire plot revolves around McCartney somehow losing a master tape to an album. You mean there were no session tapes? No backups? No mix-downs? No dubs? C'mon.

 

I love magical mystery tour. I've never seen broad street, but they seem... extremely different from each other.

I've been saving the film for some night spent with the appropriate large quantity of (water-filtered) 'herbal jazz cigarettes,' since I expect that's the state of mind its creator was in during its conception and/or filming.

see also: understanding nearly every project McCartney undertook after 1966 or so.

 

Since Paul and Ringo are again playing "themselves", why isn't this considered a sequel to "A Hard Days Night" and "Help"?...

 

Aren't the so-called "master tapes" actually 2" reels? (haven't seen it in decades, that's what I remember). Then they likely aren't master tapes at all but session reels. I heard the shooting script was the first draft, no rewriting done. And poor Tracey Ullman, having to mouth all those awful lines....

 

POS

 

This will be out on 4K BD, before Let It Be gets a DVD release.

 

Watched it again a couple of years ago. Didn't remember how awful it was.

 

I think Paul based the plot on events that happened during the recording of "BOTR":

"While out walking one night against advice, Paul and Linda were robbed at knifepoint. The assailants made away with all of their valuables and even stole a bag containing a notebook full of handwritten lyrics and songs, and cassettes containing demos for songs to be recorded."

 

That did happen, and in the analog days, one copy of a cassette could definitely be stolen. But... that's now what happens in Give My Regards to Broad Street. In fact, the key image for the movie is a guy with a blue 3M 2" shipper case for a 24-track analog tape: