Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
One of the most down-to-earth, accurate and realistic rock and roll movies of all time premiered on this day in 1973.
Britain’s answer, in some ways, to American Graffiti, That’ll Be the Day looked back fondly, but realistically at Britain’s late ’50s, early ’60s pre-Beatle youth culture. Future pop star David Essex, in his breakthrough role (he’d been playing Jesus in Godspell on the stage), played Jim MacLaine, a frustrated teen determined to break out of the shackles of small-town life in dull, boring, bland, post-war Britain.
Essex’s own life was probably a lot harsher than that of his essentially middle-class character who opts out of a cozy path to university for life on the edge instead. In fact, Essex grew up in a particularly impoverished and tough part of London, and was pals with soccer pro Frank Lampard Sr., father of current Chelsea and England soccer star Frank Lampard.
Ray Connolly, author of the movie, recently interviewed Essex and asked about his early life and leaving school at just 15 years of age. “Actually I think it was more like 14,” he said. “I never used to go. And when I did they’d just send me and Frankie Lampard off to play football. I played for West Ham Schoolboys. Frankie said I could have made it as a professional if I’d stuck at it, but I think he was just being kind.”
Directed by Granada TV mainstay Claude Whatham, the film succeeded thanks to a delicate balance of tried and trusted Brit actors like Rosemary Leach, newcomers like Essex and, most significantly, for its music credibility, full-blooded cameos from real-life rockers, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Billy Fury.
Throwing away his chance of attending university, Essex’s character winds up at a small seaside town working at a holiday camp (pre-packaged holiday vacations for Brits in wooden huts by the sea!). Enter Ringo, in his favorite film role and certainly his most accomplished as the worldly-wise Teddy Boy, Mike, who takes young Jim MacLaine under his wing.
The interplay between Ringo, who was partially re-creating his own holiday camp past as an actor, and Essex, determined to break out of his own social situation, resulted in some poignant, witty and, at times, surprisingly harsh scenes.
Throw in the holiday camp’s resident rock band, featuring a somewhat controlled Moon on drums and British ’50s rocker Fury as bandleader Stormy Tempest (based on Ringo’s old bandmate Rory Storm) and a tight, naturalistic script by music fan Connolly, and the movie was destined for greatness, or at the very least least cult stardom.
Essex sprung from the exposure with a hit single that cracked the American market, “Rock On,” a song he had written for the movie soundtrack but was rejected. The single would sell in excess of 15 million copies worldwide and, according to a statement Essex made to the Daily Telegraph in 2008, was one of John Lennon’s three favorite songs. “It’s such a weirdly original song; it still seems strange to me that they love it so much in America,” Essex said.
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