Peter Viney's Blog

Performance 

1970

Written by Donald Cammell
Directed by Donald Cammell & Nicholas Roeg

James Fox – Chas
Mick Jagger- Turner
Anita Pallenberg – Pherber
Michele Breton – Lucy
Ann Sidney- Dana
Johnny Shannon – Harry Flowers
Anthony Morton – Dennis
Anthony Valetine – Joey Maddocks
John Bindon – Moody
Stanley Meadows – Rosebloom
Allan Cuthbertson – The lawyer
John Sterland – The Chauffeur
Laraine Wickens – Lorraine

MUSIC by Jack Nitzsche
MEMO FROM TURNER by Mick Jagger
Music conducted by Randy Newman
with:
Ry Cooder, Merry Clayton, Lowell George, Gene Parsons, Russ Tittleman, Bobby West, Milt Holland, Bernard Krause

The 60s films revisited series continues… .

Performance was delayed two years on its way to the screen, so finally coming out in 1970 in America and Germany, or January 1971 in the UK. Think of it as a 1968 movie. It was filmed in September and October 1968, pre-dating Ned Kelly, which was filmed in 1969, but which made it to the screen first.  We had been waiting for it eagerly and queued up to see it on the first day. Like The Rolling Stones at Altamont, it truly marks the end of the 60s, violence clashing with the hippy dream in both. It also marks where Mick Jagger got the full lipstick applied on those huge lips, and created the logo for Rolling Stones Records.

The delay was because Warner Bros were expecting if not Hard Days Night or Help, then at least a vehicle for a Rolling Stone. They (and Mick Jagger) must have thought; Frank Sinatra did it (and could actually act too), Elvis did it, Annette Funicello did it, Cliff Richards did it, The Beatles really did it. Even the Dave Clark Five managed to do it. Paul Jones had just done it. Trouble is, Mick Jagger wanted to be in a proper serious dramatic film with real actors.

Then Mick Jagger doesn’t appear till after the halfway mark (later in the first cut, at 50 minutes in), and only sings one song. Film executives walked out of a preview. One executive’s wife threw up in a Santa Monica preview. Had Warner been hoping for a rating lower than X? (18 rating after 1982). No chance on sex (heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual), drugs or violence. In the porn film in the club, and the whipping of Chas,  add sado-masochism.

Saving water – bath together. Mick Jagger, Michele Brelon, Anita Pallenberg

In a desperate attempt to placate the money men (a task characters in the film also have), Roeg and Cammell lost 15 or 20 minutes of early gangster footage and moved some shots of Jagger painting his walls earlier and intercut them fast in the hope that Stones fans would wait in the cinema till he appeared. This had to be done in Hollywood with a new editor, and ironically the cutting they introduced has promoted the film’s experimental status.

I know when I first saw it there were some very perplexed kids in the lobby afterwards. Only a few weeks earlier in December 1970, I had seen the screening for film executives of the Haro Senft film Fegefeuer (Purgatory) for which Supertramp had done the soundtrack. Both films share a sequence where we follow something deep into the body. Fegefeuer was screened after lunch in Soho and several executives snored through it, what with it being in German and subtitled and with them having had a large alcohol filled lunch. In comparison, Performance in January 1971 seemed pretty straightforward to me, but it was way too art house / experimental for the distributors, and for many critics. It took years for its cult status to grow.

Two worlds … gangster London and hippy London. They were filmed so separately that Anita Pallenberg was surprised when she saw the gangster sections when the film was cut together.  In 1968, black cabs were reluctant to drive “south of the river” and the gangster element takes place there, around Wandsworth. The decadent hippy bit is north of the river in Notting Hill. Things look great in Notting Hill Gate as Quintessence sang. Friends lived in Ladbroke Grove the year this film came out. In 2019, the whole South Bank is tourist central. We often stay in Tower Bridge Road. A taxi-driver pointed out where the Kray Brothers betting shop used to be just across from where we stay. The Kray Brothers were the obvious oblique inspiration, and still retain a mythical aura in the East End fifty years on. Our taxi driver still saw a connection as a major point of interest. So gang leader Harry Flowers and Dennis and their men are homosexual. Harry and Dennis share a double bed. They call their organization “The business” or “the firm.” Organized protection gangs were partial to a euphemism.

It was innovative in its realism for its time, which is why it’s a cult movie and source material for so many later TV and film brutal crime stories. John Bindon (see also Poor Cow (1967)), who played Moody, had definite crime connections, and it is said that James Fox went along on “gigs”  to get into character. The Krays had wide showbiz connections. Lord Snowden even visited their nightclub. One would think the film makers would have been wary of portraying the Kray world, but as they say, the real Mafia loved The Godfather movies and The Sopranos and sought for bit parts. Donald Cammell consulted with people who knew The Krays, and Harry Flowers is modelled on Ronnie Kray … calm, assertive, oddly formal, articulate.

It’s a heavy film for the participants … James Fox became a born again Christian and kept off the screen for the next ten years. Anita Pallenberg stopped modelling to be Keef’s old lady and get further into drugs. Michele Breton who played Lucy disappeared from the screen too. Mick Jagger went straight into the nightmare surrounding Ned Kelly with Marianne Faithful’s attempted suicide, then the Altamont festival in December 1969.

Joey (Anthony Valentine) and Harry Flowers (Johnny Valentine)

The first part of the story is rapidly intercut. James Fox is Chas, an incredibly violent enforcer for Harry Fowler’s protection business. We see him threaten a mini cab business, then a porn film club. He even threatens someone right in front of their legal counsel in the street. In a long scene they strip a Rolls Royce’s paintwork with acid in a garage, then shave the chauffeur’s head and leave him chained to the radiator.

 

The garage scene

Things change when they’re asked to threaten a betting shop, because that’s “personal.” Chas has issues with Joey, the owner (Anthony Valentine) that go right back to schooldays, so goes overboard and totally wrecks the place. Tut, tut. The “business” wanted a merger by force with Joey’s shop not total destruction, and Chas broke the rules by getting too personal (we’re a business) and too violent.

James Fox as Chas confronts Joey

Joey is to be permitted retribution … they wreck Chas’s flat, cover it with red paint, strip Chas, beat him, then Joey whips him. Chas finds his gun and kills Joey and sends the accomplices packing. But now Chas is on the run … no one even mentions the police. It’s “the business” that’s he’s scared of. He dies his hair with red paint.

Fox on the run. Or rather James Fox as Chas on the run.

At the railway station café he hears a musician talking about all the stuff at Turner’s place, complete with address. The musician has been chucked out owing Turner £41 rent. Chas decides to go and take over rental of the basement rooms. He gets in by saying he has the £41 and the musician had told him to go there. In one of many tiny side references, there’s a Mars bar on the steps to the house (Marianne Faithful and the Mars bar when the Stones were busted is a rock legend … and untrue). It’s not Chas’s kind of place:

CHAS: It’s a right pisshole. Long hair, beatniks, free love, druggers,

Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Turner (Mick Jagger)

Turner’s household consists of Pherber (Anita Pallenberg), the gamine Lucy (Michele Breton) and a child, Lorraine. The adults sleep three to a bed.  There’s a lot of writhing about, giving rise to much speculation on whether Jagger and Pallenberg were just acting or getting it on for real. Pallenberg has said not, film crew have said yes. For non-Stones fans, having escaped Brian Jones, Pallenberg was Keith Richard’s partner.

Pherber, Lucy and Turner

Turner is a recently retired rock star with dyed black hair and that enormous pair of red lips. Lorraine tells Chas:

LORRAINE: Old rubber lips? He had three numbers ones, two number twos and a number four.

Turner doesn’t really want Chas there … Chas claims to be in entertainment himself, as a juggler. They guess he’s a gangster. The three take him over, via psychedelic mushrooms. Chas needs a passport photo so he can escape to the USA, and after a few tries he gets a hippy wig and unisex clothes … and lots of mushrooms. Sex and drugs ensue.

Memo from Turner- Turner in the fantasy sequence

In a superb fantasy sequence, Chas envisages Turner with slicked back hair and suit as the lead gangster … Turner sings “Memo From Turner” – and it is one of Mick Jagger’s greatest songs. The gang are around him and add interjections (which are not on the record), and follow his instructions to undress. It ends with the floor filled with naked gangsters. It has been hailed as a major influence on rock video.

B&W lobby card: Chas is transformed – Anita Pallenberg and James Fox

Chas is stoned. He may be the nastiest bastard most have ever met, but he can’t deal with these people. His contact, Tony, who calls him “uncle,” has been subverted, gives away the address and the gang arrive to collect him. He asks for a couple of minutes (he was on his way to get shampoo for Lucy)… he goes upstairs and finds Turner and Pherber in bed, and shoots Turner. He is looking more and more like Turner. He is escorted away in a massive white Roller (it was borrowed from John Lennon). The last shot we see of him very very briefly, a few frames, in the Roller window is Turner. Sorry, plot spoilers. It’s such a well-known movie.

Nicholas Roeg was known as a cinematographer and this is his first direction role. Apart from the cutting, there are many devices. At one point, Chas and Turner’s faces morph into each other … a technique I thought Godley & Creme invented for the Cry video in 1985. In 1985 it was a wonder of computers. Roeg must have found a manual way of splicing it to work.

It’s all done with mirrors … Chas ( James Fox) / Pherber ( Anita Pallenberg ) complete a face

He does another with Pallenberg holding a mirror so we get half her face, half James Fox’s face, split down the middle. The morphing and splitting screens reflect in the four main characters who run from the very female Pherber, to the boyish female Lucy to the girlish male, Turner, to the macho hard man Chas. The first time we see Lucy’s short haired head writhing with Turner, you think it’s a boy not a girl, and that is unsurprising given the rest of the film.

It stands up. All the gangsters are superb actors, James Fox is extremely good, and a mile from his previous roles in The Servant and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Johnny Shannon, who played Harry Flowers was an ex-boxer, who James Fox had met researching the role. Shannon was initially due to coach Fox in manner and accent, but was so convincing he was then cast in a major role himself.

Jagger and Pallenberg, as the non-professionals, hold their ground. Maybe it’s unfair to say Pallenberg wasn’t a professional. She had already appeared in two cult films which will eventually be reviewed here: Candy and Barbarella. Jagger comes across well, though playing a decadent rock star with lots of sex was hardly a long way from life.  He does a solo blues sequence with acoustic guitar that is brilliant (though I think the guitar is someone else).

Turner (Mick Jagger) runs through some solo blues stuff

The violence is (sadly) less of a shock than it was in 1970. It’s sad to think we’ve become acclimatised to such a level of intense violence on screen in the intervening fifty years.

Best quote. Chas to Turner:

CHAS: Comical little geezer. You’ll look funny when you’re fifty.

Yes, and even funnier at 76.

SOUNDTRACK

I stayed in touch with the Jack Nitzsche soundtrack over the years. I have it on CD. A band works tightly together for years and assumes there’s nothing of value beyond their musical unit. It must have been a minor revelation for Jagger working with Randy Newman as MD, and Ry Cooder and Lowell George. Merry Clayton appeared on Let It Bleed.  Ry Cooder was considered for the Rolling Stones around then, and claims they taped hours of him demonstrating his chops, and that the riffs and patterns he demonstrated later appeared as Jagger-Richard compositions on Exile in Main Street.

Memo From Turner is later credited to “The Rolling Stones” on compilations. It’s just Mick Jagger. No other Stone was turned. Or Rolled. My original single. On the single it’s credited as written by Jagger-Richard. On the film, just Jagger. I believe they had a “Lennon-McCartney” type deal. The Stones later recorded a version which is on Metamorphisis. There is a first attempt, unreleased, which is slower with Traffic providing the backing.

BLU-RAY

Technically immaculate, sound and vision. A definitive cut was commissioned by the BFI (British Film Institute). Some interjections in Memo From Turner were lost (they can be seen online) because of sound problems.

2003 poster for the BFI remastered version

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)