Tommy

When I first saw Ken Russell's 1975 adaptation of The Who's rock opera Tommy a quarter century ago in theaters, I thought it was something of an incoherent mess--thanks to choppy editing and Russell's just-enough-to-be-dangerous familiarity with Jesus, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. Watching it again in Columbia TriStar's Superbit edition (which, incidentally, looks spectacular: Tommy may well be the sharpest, most colorful 1975 film released on DVD), I'm reminded of just how non-prescient my early critical antennae were: Russell's brand of quick cutting and narrative-free symbolism would not only come to define the MTV style for music videos during the '80s, but also dominate much of the Hollywood mainstream into the '90s. Penned by Pete Townshend (lately in the news on charges of downloading child pornography), Tommy is the story of a boy (played as a teen/adult by Who lead singer Roger Daltrey) who is traumatized when he witnesses the murder of his presumed MIA in WWII dad (Robert Powell), the latter coming home to find his wife (Ann Margret) in flagrante delicto with her new hubby (Oliver Reed). Informed that he heard, saw, and will tell no one nothing, Tommy retreats, becoming a psychologically "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who's tortured by his sadistic Cousin Kevin (Paul Nicholas), diddled by his pedophile Uncle Ernie (late Who drummer Keith Moon), and shot full of drugs by the Acid Queen (Tina Turner, kicking serious tush, as usual) before he takes up pinball, topples the reigning champ (Elton John), and attracts a flock of near-religious worshippers that eventually turn against him, sparking a cathartic senses-restoring breakthrough. Yeah, whatever (how on earth did this film get a "PG" rating?). Like Alan Parker's Pink Floyd's The Wall (which can trace its ancestry directly to this film), Tommy is not so much about the plot as about images and music, an audiovisual blast to the senses, and in this it succeeds (well, except for Ann Margret's writhing around in a sea of baked beans and the godawful singing by Oliver Reed and Jack Nicholson, which even the crisp Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack can't save). Recommended, overall. (R. Pitman)[Blu-ray Review—Aug. 31, 2010—Sony, 111 min., PG, $30.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1975's Tommy sports a good transfer with DTS-HD 5.1 sound. Blu-ray extras include a “movieIQ” track, trailers, and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a cult classic makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]