The Tommy Steele Story

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The Tommy Steele Story
"The Tommy Steele Story" (1957).jpg
UK poster by Tom Chantrell
Directed byGerard Bryant
Written by Norman Hudis
Produced by Herbert Smith
executive
Stuart Levy
Nat Cohen
Peter Rogers
Starring Tommy Steele
CinematographyPeter Hennessy
Edited byAnn Chegwidden
Production
company
Distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated (UK)
AIP (US)
Release date
  • 30 May 1957 (1957-05-30)(UK) [1]
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£15,000 [2]

The Tommy Steele Story is a 1957 British film directed by Gerard Bryant and starring Tommy Steele, dramatising Steele's rise to fame as a teen idol. [3] Along with Rock You Sinners , it was one of the first British films to feature rock and roll. [4] In the US, where Steele was not well-known, the film was released under the title Rock Around the World. [5] [6] The film was announced in January 1957, three months after the release of Steele's first single "Rock with the Caveman". [7] [8]

Contents

Plot

Tommy Steele lives with his mother and father in their London home. He works with a bellboy until he injures his spine doing judo. In hospital he is given a guitar to help with his therapy and he starts to play to entertain patients and staff. He works on an ocean liner, performing in his spare time, and gets a job playing in a coffee bar. He is popular with audiences and gets a recording contract.

Cast

Production

Development

Producers Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy noted the success of low budget American rock musicals like Rock Around the Clock (1956) and thought they might be able to do a similar movie in England with Tommy Steele. [9] "We knew that if we could sign him [Steele] in time we'd have a winner," said Cohen later. [10]

Steele wrote in his memoirs that Cohen and Levy "were quite different from that other British film mogul, J. Arthur Rank. Where Rank was C. Aubrey Smith, Cohen and Levy were Abbott and Costello. They didn't so much as hold a meeting as do an act." [11] He added "there was a degree of madness about them – but you had to be mad to take the chances they took – with a little eccentricity for good measure." [12]

Steele agreed to make the film for a reported fee of £3,000. [13] (Variety put this at $7,000. [14] )

He met with Mike Pratt and Lionel Bart and they spent a month writing the songs. [12] Bart considered the film premature, reflecting "Here's this guy, he's only 20, he ain't even started his story". [15]

Norman Hudis was hired to write the script by Peter Rogers. Hudis completed his task in ten days saying "it was one of the easiest I've ever done" as "I was a cockney like Tommy Steele. I came from the same sort of street: I knew how he talked. I knew how he thought." [16]

Shooting

Filming started at Beaconsfield Studios in 18 February 1957 at Beaconsfield Studios [17] and took four weeks. [10] Steele later recalled that director Gerald Bryant "was more like a poet than a showman." [12]

Reception

Box office

Hudis felt it "was an astute and alert move to make the subject but at most I thought it would be a sterling support film. The success of the film and the way it rocketed to first feature status knocked me for six." [16]

The film was trade shown on 30 May 1957 and released in June. Nat Cohen called the movie "One of the most important, and certainly one of the most talked and written about, ot Anglo’s current new British features." [18]

In July, Kinematograph Weekly reported the film was performing strongly and "it obviously appeals to younger generation, but non-rock n rollers are also going for the genial and talented Bermondsey boy." [19]

According to Kinematograph Weekly in December 1957 the film was "in the money" at the British box office for the year [20] saying it "really went to town... playing repeat business with, if possible, even greater success." [21] Another account listed it as the 13th most popular film at the British box office that year. [22] Steele was voted the seventh most popular star in Britain for 1957. [23]

Nat Cohen claimed the film "paid for itself in two weeks on the circuit" and was successful in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Scandinavia. He added "the boy's a natural film find." [24] The film was one of the most popular releases of the year in Austria. [25] The movie was the first "rock n roll" film released in Spain. [26] A popular European tour by Steele added to the success of the film there. [27]

The movie has been called Nat Cohen's "first really big hit". [9]

Kine Weekly argued in 1959 the success of the movie was a turning point in the fortunes of Anglo Amalgamated, writing "Cohen and Levy still blush at the budget but the picture is regarded as a Wardour Street phenomenon. It made a fortune within its first year and continues to make money in every corner of the world it plays." [8] The magazine stated in another piece the movie "has shown the value of catering for teenage audiences. Nat rightly points out that the younger people still want to go out to the cinema and they have money to spend ; and mostly more to spare than hard-pressed parents. So Nat and partner Stuart Levy hope to keep the pot boiling with the new programmes." [28]

However academics Sue Harper and Vince Porter wrote the success of the film was "a flash in the pan" as Steele's subsequent movies were not as successful. These included two more for Cohen and Levy, The Duke Wore Jeans and Tommy the Toreador . [29]

Russian release

In 1959, The Tommy Steele Story became one of the few British films shown in the Soviet Union after Steele made a three-day promotional visit to Moscow for a screening at the Kremlin. [30] [31] [nb 1]

Critical

The Tommy Steele Story received a generally positive critical reception.

Kine Weekly called it a "cheery, down-to-earth musical... At once authentic fairy story and ively song aibum, it’s a cinch for the populars." [32]

Variety reviewed the American release stating "it’s been crudely Americanized... by adding intro footage by Yank deejay Hunter Hancock. However, it remains emphatically British in concept and largely in locale, even if more in the Cockney than the stiff-upper-lip tradition." The reviewer felt Steele had "an engaging personality and a fine set of pipes, worthy of a better idiom. Otherwise, biog is a slender story thread on which to hang a multitude of rock, calypso, ballad and rhythm & blues tunes." [33]

Sight and Sound called it:

An inexpensive and unpretentious film; but it is notable for brief glimpses of a reality rare in British cinema. The smoke-worn bricks of Frearn Street; the Steeles’ Bermondsey living-room with its cheap ornaments, gaudy crockery and sauce-bottle on the teatable; above all the easy, grinning, pocky-faced figure of Tommy Steele himself... Steele lives out his part with an ease and freedom from affectation which make you suddenly despair of the politer conventions of film acting. [34]

Writing in Melody Maker , Tony Brown deemed Steele "a natural", commenting "he can amble in front of the cameras cocking a snook at RADA technique and still go over with a bang". Brown criticised the film's plot as having "no dramatic impact. Every thing, it seems, happened so easily", but praised the film's production value and concluded "it must be counted as a triumph for the Bermondsey boy. There should be a few red faces along Tin Pan Alley when it goes the rounds". [35] An uncredited writer for Bristol Evening Post praised Steele's performance in an "engaging" film that "could so easily have been embarrassing to anyone not addicted to the youth" [36]

Legacy

The success of the film led to a boom in low budget British film musicals such as The Duke Wore Jeans (with Steele), Six-Five Special and The Golden Disc . [37]

Soundtrack

The Tommy Steele Story
TheTommySteeleStorysoundtrack.jpg
Soundtrack album by
Tommy Steele with the Steelmen
ReleasedMay 1957
Genre Rock and roll
Label Decca Records
Tommy Steele with the Steelmen chronology
Tommy Steele Stage Show
(1957)		The Tommy Steele Story
(1957)		 The Duke Wore Jeans
(1958)

The Tommy Steele Story is the first soundtrack album and the second album release by Tommy Steele, issued as a 10-inch LP by Decca in May 1957. The album's twelve songs were composed quickly by Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, with Steele co-writing all but one. [15] [38] The soundtrack features a broader range of genres than Steele's previous releases, with Bart having convinced Norman Hudis that "they couldn't all be rock and roll songs if they were doing [Tommy's] story. He's a cockney kid, he's been in the merchant navy, so let's have some cockney songs, and let's have some calypso." [15] [39]

The soundtrack album was the first UK number one album by a British act. [15] [40] Its two singles, "Butterfingers" and the double A-side "Water, Water" / "A Handful of Songs", were both top-ten hits on the UK Singles Chart. [41] [42] In 1958, "A Handful of Songs" received the Ivor Novello Award for Most Outstanding Song of the Year, Musically and Lyrically. [43] Tim Rice has described the song as "a lovely composition, a show song disguised as a pop song and it showed the way both of them were heading." [44]

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Take Me Back, Baby" – 2:04
  2. "Butterfingers" – 2:20
  3. "I Like" – 1:43
  4. "A Handful of Songs" – 2:07
  5. "You Gotta Go" – 3:19
  6. "Water, Water" – 2:19
  7. "Cannibal Pot" – 1:55

Side two

  2. "Will It Be You" – 2:09
  3. "Two Eyes" – 1:46
  4. "Build Up" – 2:24
  5. "Time to Kill" – 2:00
  6. "Elevator Rock" – 1:51
  7. "Doomsday Rock" – 2:01
  8. "Teenage Party" – 2:22

Notes

  1. ↑ During the trip, USSR Minister of Culture Nikolai Mikhailov is reported to have told Steele he looked like "a member of the Young Communist League". [31]

References

  1. ↑ "Amusements Guide". Evening Standard. 30 May 1957. p. 14.
  2. ↑ Andrew Caine Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004p.117
  3. ↑ ""THE TOMMY STEELE STORY"". The Australian Women's Weekly . 27 November 1957. p. 42. Retrieved 6 May 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "BFI Screenonline: Tommy Steele Story, The (1957)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  5. ↑ Gary A. Smith, American International Pictures: The Golden Years, Bear Manor Media 2014 p 59
  6. ↑ "The Story of Tommy Steele". The Christian Science Monitor. 10 October 1957. p. 7.
  7. ↑ "Tommy Steele gets rolling" (PDF). Melody Maker. 12 January 1957. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  8. 1 2 "The Anglo Amalgamated Story". Kine Weekly. 31 December 1959. pp. 4–5.
  9. 1 2 Vagg, Stephen (16 January 2025). "Forgotten British moguls: Nat Cohen – Part Two (1957-1962)". Filmink. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  10. 1 2 "14 Songs in Anglo's Tommy Steele Story". Kine Weekly. 7 March 1957. p. 21.
  11. ↑ Steele p 270
  12. 1 2 3 Steele p 271
  13. ↑ David Shipman The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, London: Angus & Robertson, 1972 p.494
  14. ↑ "Tommy Steele spurns". Variety. 26 February 1958. p. 54.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Stafford, David; Stafford, Caroline (12 December 2011). Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be: The Lionel Bart Story. Omnibus Press. ISBN   9780857127426 . Retrieved 29 November 2022.
  16. 1 2 "It just happened". Kinematograph Weekly. 28 January 1960. p. 27.
  17. ↑ "Steele's Brit build up". Variety. 6 February 1957. p. 60.
  18. ↑ Cohen, Nat (9 May 1957). "To help the exhibitor". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 71.
  19. ↑ Billings, Josh (6 June 1957). "Your films". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 13.
  20. ↑ Billings, Josh (12 December 1957). "Others in the money". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.
  21. ↑ Billings, Josh (12 December 1957). "Hardly vintage but a great year for British films". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 6.
  22. ↑ LINDSAY ANDERSON, and DAVID DENT (8 January 1958). "Time For New Ideas". The Times. London. p. 9 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  23. ↑ "Most Popular Film of the Year". The Times. No. 54022. London. 12 December 1957. p. 3.
  24. ↑ "They are turning Steele into gold". The Citizen. 26 April 1958. p. 5.
  25. ↑ "Here's the Austrian situation". Variety. 15 April 1959. p. 73.
  26. ↑ "Rock n roll hits Spain". Variety. 23 July 1958. p. 18.
  27. ↑ "Tommy Steele tour rocks European capitals". Kinematograph Weekly. 19 September 1957. p. 8.
  28. ↑ "Long Shots". Kinematograph Weekly. 16 January 1958. p. 4.
  29. ↑ Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (2003). British cinema of the 1950s : the decline of deference. Oxford University Press. p. 262.
  30. ↑ Gale, John (9 August 1959). "The Tommy Steele (in Moscow) Story". The Observer. London. p. 1.
  31. 1 2 "Russians to see film of Tommy Steele story". Coventry Evening Telegraph: 7. 8 August 1959. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  32. ↑ "The Tommy Steele Story". The Tommy Steele Story. 30 May 1957. p. 17.
  33. ↑ "Rock Around the world". Variety. 28 August 1957. p. 6.
  34. ↑ Robinson, David (Summer 1957). "The Tommy Steele Story". Sight and Sound. p. 43.
  35. ↑ Brown, Tony (25 May 1957). "Tommy? He's a natural" (PDF). Melody Maker. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
  36. ↑ "Steele Story". Bristol Evening Post: 2. 20 July 1957. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  37. ↑ "British swing to production of filmusicals". Variety. 22 October 1958. p. 13.
  38. ↑ "DISC DIGEST". The Australian Women's Weekly . 19 February 1958. p. 34. Retrieved 6 May 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  39. ↑ Frame, Pete (2007). The Restless Generation: How Rock Music Changed the Face of 1950s Britain. Omnibus Press. ISBN   9780857127136 . Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  40. ↑ Mathews, Derek (2006). Tommy Steele: His Life, His Songs . Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  41. ↑ "Tommy Steele". Official Charts. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
  42. ↑ Eder, Bruce. "Tommy Steele Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  43. ↑ "The Ivors 1958". Ivors Academy . Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  44. ↑ Kutner, Jon; Leigh, Spencer (2010). 1,000 UK Number One Hits. Omnibus Press. ISBN   9780857123602 . Retrieved 29 November 2022.

Notes

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