Is Broadstreet a bad film?

[giovagb07]

Have you ever seen Sgt Pecker's Lonely Hearts Club Gang Bang? that's a real bad movie!!!

Were the "Bee Gays" in it??? "Brucey In the Sky With Simon" was one of the songs, right?

Still better and far more entertaining than Mr.T in "D.C. Cab"

take a look:
http://theater.aebn.net/dispatcher/movi ... erId=40725
http://www.funnytitles.com/

[dpantz]

Okay bad title...but far more "entertaining" than "Broadstreet"!!! LOL!!!

[MemoryAlmostFull]

It's difficult to pin point what's actually wrong with the film beyond the thin premise. Maybe it's a bit too quiet in places. Apart from the Silly Love Songs reprise etc and "Corridor Music", that is. You know, there isn't any authentic incidental music. So it does all seem a bit cold and sterile in places. It would have been interesting if Paul had tried his hand at doing that kind of background music.

Like I said in the very first post, the attention to detail in this film is sublime. Even when you've seen it about four or five times you notice things that you haven't noticed before. For example, the barman who collects the glasses off the table Paul and Harry are sitting at in flashback is the same barman who sees Paul just before he meets Ralph Richardson about an hour or so later. Thus, this was "The Old Justice". Harry is vaccuming in the beginning when Bryan Brown is on the phone, and that's before we even know who he is! It had occured to me that Harry only exsisted in Paul's dream.

That's another thing critics must have hated. The whole "it was all a dream" idea. As everybody who's been on a writing course or who has read a book concerning Creative Writing - [i]never[i] say it was all a dream! But there had to be an ending.

Lack of promotion certainly wasn't a cause for the film's failure at the box office. Merchandise included the soundtrack album (which sold better than the actual film) in LP and Cassette format, a book about the film and even a computer game.

As Paul said two years later in the Paul McCartney Special: "It wasn't a bad film, but then again I don't think it was a good one either." He also said that, "I thought it was going to be Raiders of the Lost Ark Part 2". In another interview, he proclaimed the film to be "the Hard Days Night of my career now."

In the same interview, he blames other people for not telling him it was a bad script. In point of fact, everyone he sent it to originally turned it down flat before Peter Webb read it and said, "It'll work." Not the most encouraging words from a film director, even a first-time film director, but it has to be said that Paul is to blame for Broadstreet's percieved lack of quality. And no one was about to tell him it was rubbish, were they? Imagine you were the Best Boy or Assistant Floor Manager - this is one of your first jobs - would you go up to Beatle Paul and say, "Hiya Paul, great to be here. By the way, the script is awful!"

Paul has only mentioned Broadstreet twice since - to my knowlege, at least. First in the afore-mentioned Paul McCartney special, and eleven years later - 1997 - he gave the busker scene a passing reference during the Bishop's Gate Conference for VH1.

And on the 89-90 World Tour, he ignored "No More Lonely Nights" - one of his biggest hits of the 80s. Seems like he wants to forget about it.

It would it be interesting though, if he saw the film now.

(Bit of trivia: Paul toyed with the idea of performing "Beautiful Boy" in Broadstreet, as a tribute to John).

[Wings]

i was one of seven people to see this flick on opening day at the theater. that was on a friday. by sunday...it was no longer playing at the theater.

I wonder if we were at the same theater? I also went an opening night with a date. Got there early thinking there would be LONG lines. Nope only about a dozen people. This was in Schaumburg, IL. And yes by Sunday the movie was pulled.

I think Roger Ebert helped with that by blasting the film, (Not Paul or his muisc).

But I do have the VHS and then about a year ago the DVD. I do like some of the videos.

But my god what was Paul thinking when they did "Silly Love Songs"?

[baal]

The video for 'No More Lonely Nights' which trailed the film launch made it seem as though the movie WAS just what Paul had originally wanted to make...a Speilbergian sci-fi blockbuster. By chopping the film together very artfully, they actually created the impression that there was some kind of sci-fi time-travel plot.
Plus having a Dave Gilmour guitar solo on the single had definitely upped Macca's cred in lots of quarters.
But although I went to the cinema twice to see it, I did so on my own because by then the truth was known..that it was plotless, over-long and barely contrived. Many many people in the media and the audience were so exasperatedly disappointed with it that they pretty much decided to permanently marginalise and diss Macca right up until 'Back in the US'..
Paul definitely did overplay his media hand in the mid-80's and 'Broad Street' was incredibly hyped! From earnest and serious arts programmes like 'South Bank Show' to special features in The Sunday Times, it was made to seem as if Paul had crafted something of a magnum opus that would sweep away all critical disdain

I actually enjoyed it a lot but 'Rupert and the Frog Song' which was the warm-up film was better and the runaway success. In fact on both occasions I saw it, it was mainly a family audience and everybody was very up during the animated 'Rupert' and then leaving throughout 'Broad Street'. It's sad to admit but I think that by the end of the film there was only me and a couple of others left in what had started as a sizable audience. Of those that did go to see it in it's short run, surely most were led in there by their kids!
And erm...that's the problem right there.
After all the promise, really what everyone was left with was their kids demanding a copy of the Frog Song video that Christmas (it was the biggest selling music video for several years).

[wiseblood]

I saw this for the first time when I was 7 (1986). I planned a whole sleepover with my friend to watch this on Cinemax and tape it. It's one of those films from my youth that is Beatle related that I still feel is one of my guilty pleasure films Does it have to be brilliant? It's Paul making a movie. Is he a movie maker? No. He is a musician. I dig that about him and I put this in the same class (not as high of course) as Help and Hard Day's Night. They are just rock and roll movies that feature music and I just dig them. Don't think too hard about this one folks - it's just music!

[dylankyra]

I remember seeing it in it's first theatrical release --- day after Thanksgiving, '84, I believe. I was one of 3 people in the theater. I agree with everyone else ---- barn rehearsal shots were cool....seeing Ringo's comic sense on display in the studio scenes near the beginning.....

[baal]

Two projects I always had in mind to do in the days of video tape was
1. To take all of the music sequences, paste on the audio from the LP out to make a 'video album'
2. To re-edit the remaining stuff into a new 'plot'
I'd meant to have this finished in like a weekend some time in 1985.
D'oh!

As it is, I haven't seen the movie since then because I never bought it when it was on VHS (actually, in the UK, WAS IT, I'm now wondering?) although I did once set the video to tape it off-air when it was shown at about 3am.
My brother bought the computer game, refused to let me even touch it and when he was fed up with it, threw it out without telling me (sibling rivalry).
Of course, I had the last laugh when I told him how much it's now worth! (about £2.50)