Prince

Like many kids growing up in the ’70s, I was raised surrounded by my parents’ Beatles records: the early LPs in mono (as with the early Dylan and Stones); the White Album with its giant poster and set of portraits tucked in with the vinyl; Sgt. Pepper’s inner spread of the band in full uniform against a sun-yellow background. I also grew up with the movies my father loved, from old Marx Brothers and black-and-white Creature Double Feature pictures on Saturday TV, to then-recent films by Woody Allen, Scorsese, Coppola and Truffaut. These threads converged with two movies I watched repeatedly as a kid: A Hard Day’s Night and Yellow Submarine.

The films are as different as the periods of the band they capture. A Hard Day’s Night came out at the height of Beatlemania and flows with the group’s youthful exuberance. Yellow Submarine came late in their run, animated in a psychedelic pop-art style befitting the evolution of their music and featuring vocal actors instead of the band. Both left indelible marks on the relationship between music and film.

In honor of the 50th anniversaries of A Hard Day’s Night and the iconic Elvis Presley film Viva Las Vegas, we took a look at the essential fictional movies built around a real band or performer. In the coming weeks we’ll explore rock movies about fictitious bands, rock documentaries, concert films and more. But first, we begin at the beginning.

Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Rock movies are as old as rock itself. Several cheaply-produced films in the mid-’50s featured band performances to cash in on the craze, but the first act to really anchor a movie was Elvis. Starting in 1956, Presley acted in 31 scripted films. Jailhouse Rock, his third movie and the first built around him, follows the story of Vince Everett, who shoots to fame as a singer after being released from prison for accidentally killing someone in a bar fight. Vince is more bad-boy rocker than matinee idol, and the movie includes what could be Elvis’s most iconic film scene, the title dance sequence choreographed around Elvis’s inimitable (and then-scandalous) moves.

Viva Las Vegas features a glamorous locale and profession, splashy musical numbers and real chemistry between Elvis and co-star Ann-Margret, whose affair during filming garnered headlines. It was Elvis’s biggest hit. Race car driver Lucky Jackson needs a new engine to compete in a Grand Prix in Vegas. He works in a hotel and enters a talent contest to raise enough cash to replace money he lost and fix up his car.

With Elvis’s film career in a lull at the time, MGM brought in director George Sidney, who’d made major musicals like Bye-Bye Birdie, Pal Joey, and Annie Get Your Gun. Sidney recognized the need to give Elvis a strong leading lady and not his usual bland-but-pretty co-star. The energy from their performances and from the flashing lights of Vegas, plus what became one of Presley’s most iconic songs, combine in possibly Elvis’s best film. [Where to stream Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas]

A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Yellow Submarine (1968)

Released a few months after the Beatles’ first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, A Hard Day’s Night captures the irreverent humor and charisma of the young band members, as well as the sheer pandaemonium surrounding them. While the movie is fictional, the lads play themselves, and its fresh, cinéma vérité style creates the feeling of going behind the scenes with the group.

The story follows the band leading up to a live TV performance, trapped in by their fame and schedule. It serves as a loose structure for quick jokes, slapstick gags, and, of course, some major early Beatles hits. The movie perfectly captures the moment when the Beatles were truly becoming the Beatles. Not only the best Beatles movie and one of the best rock movies made, it’s been cited on various overall top 100 lists. Its influence extends to other musical movies, British ’60s spy films, ’70s New American Cinema and hundreds of music videos from the ’80s to beyond.

By Yellow Submarine, four years later, pop culture had gone psychedelic. In this animated fantasy, the Beatles travel to Pepperland to save its citizens from the music-hating Blue Meanies by spreading the message that all you need is love. The movie includes trippy sequences set to late-Beatles classics, featuring innovative animation techniques inspired by recent art trends. Roger Ebert called it “the most original and inventive feature-length animated cartoon since the days when Walt Disney was still thinking up innovations.” [Watch A Hard Day’s Night and Yellow Submarine]

Tommy (1975) and Quadrophenia (1979)

Both of The Who’s rock operas started first as albums, with the films produced a few years later. Tommy follows the odyssey of a boy left psychosomatically deaf, dumb, and blind by an early trauma, as his mother and stepfather try to cure him. He finds his destiny through a pin ball machine, becoming a superstar and then Messiah figure, until his followers riot realizing that enlightenment is not to come.

Ken Russell’s flamboyant filmmaking overflows with crazy excess and over-the-top characters, featuring an all-star cast with Jack Nicholson, Elton John, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Ann-Margret, and the band (with Roger Daltrey as Tommy). The soundtrack doesn’t use the original album recordings; the characters sing their numbers, including Elton John performing “Pinball Wizard” and even Nicholson warbling away.

Quadrophenia, on the other hand, isn’t a musical and is grounded in gritty realism. The tale of a frustrated urban teen desperate to fit in, the movie explores the defiant, pill-popping English mod scene of the early ’60s and its tension with the rival rockers, building to a riot in Brighton over a holiday weekend. The band members only appear by way of background references. Quadrophenia succeeds as both a universal coming-of-age story and a zeitgeist-capturing examination of a specific cultural moment. [Watch Tommy and Quadrophenia]

Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)

A relentlessly grim portrait of a rock star’s descent into madness, Pink Floyd: The Wall bursts with haunting live action and animated imagery set to songs from the album, which had been released three years earlier. The lead character is a product of post-war England, losing his father to the fighting and growing up with an over-protective mother. His rise to fame results in the same alienation that primary songwriter Roger Waters was feeling by the mid-’70s, realized through Pink’s fantasies of his fascist dictator alter-ego and the central metaphor of the wall.

In her original New York Times review, Janet Maslin described The Wall as a “shameless all-out assault on the senses, rising to crescendos of grandiose fantasy.” When Roger Ebert returned to the movie for an updated review in 2010, he declared it “without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock.” [Watch Pink Floyd: The Wall]

Purple Rain (1984)

Purple Rain was conceived as a star vehicle for Prince, following his hit album 1999. It certainly succeeded. Prince became the first singer to have the number one album, single and movie in the U.S at the same time, and the soundtrack earned two Grammys and an Academy Award on its way to helping to musically define its decade.

Prince plays The Kid, a troubled, self-destructive lead singer who finds himself struggling against a rival band leader (Morris Day) and members of his own group. The movie climaxes with The Kid’s blistering club performance of the title song just at the point he’s ready to give up. The success of the film and its music was indelibly tied into the rising success of a still-young MTV, each giving the other a major boost. Purple Rain was one of the first major hits to bridge Hollywood and music video culture. [Watch Purple Rain]

Spice World (1997)

Spice World riffs directly on the structure of A Hard Day’s Night, as the Spice Girls have random adventures on their way to a major London performance. Like A Hard Day’s Night, it also explores the challenges of fame, satirizing media and celebrity culture at the height of the group’s popularity. While the Girls lack the personalities and acting chops of the Beatles, they’re surrounded by plenty of stars, including Roger Moore, Meat Loaf, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Hugh Laurie, Alan Cumming, and Richard E. Grant. The movie faired poorly with critics but found its audience, and continues to enjoy a cult following. [Watch Spice World]

Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006)

This is a hard film to categorize, as it’s the fake origin story of a real band that was made up by two comedy partners. Despite the popularity of Jack Black, the low-brow rock saga was a bomb. The list of cameos is too long to do justice here, ranging from rockers (Dave Grohl, Ronnie James Dio) to comedians (Paul F. Tompkins) to actors (Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins, John C. Reilly, Amy Adams, Jason Segel and many more) to whatever category Meat Loaf fits into. While the movie may fitfully amuse stoners, metal heads and fans of the group, it’s a tough sell for anyone else. [Watch Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny]

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Photos: Everett Collection