The Kids Are Alright (1979)

From the early black and white days to their colourful hedonistic era, you will Rock! See them at their most creative, and destructive, and experience The Who: Here!

Director:

Jeff Stein

Writer:

Jeff Stein

Stars:

Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Roger Daltrey	...	Himself (The Who)
John Entwistle	...	Himself (The Who)
Keith Moon	...	Himself (The Who)
Pete Townshend	...	Himself (The Who)
Tom Smothers	...	Himself (as Tommy Smothers)
Jimmy O'Neill	...	Himself
Russell Harty	...	Himself
Melvyn Bragg	...	Himself (as Melvin Bragg)
Ringo Starr	...	Himself
Mary Ann Zabresky	...	Herself
Michael Leckebusch	...	Himself
Barry Fantoni	...	Himself
Jeremy Paxman	...	Himself
Bob Pridden	...	Himself
Keith Richards	...	Himself (as Keith Richard)

Storyline

Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us an "inside look" at this famous rock group, "The Who". It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group to its major hit "Who Are You", and features the last performance of drummer keith Moon just prior to his death.

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Plot Keywords:

the who | performance | interview | destroying a guitar | smashing guitar | 

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Taglines:

Seeing is believing!

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Genres:

Documentary | Music

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 November 1979 (Denmark)

Also Known As:

The Who: The Kids Are Alright

Filming Locations:

Ramport Studios, Battersea, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Who Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In addition to compiling rare clips, Jeff Stein arranged for The Who to film a concert for invited fans. The show, performed at Shepperton Film Studios in London on 25 May 1978, turned out to be Keith Moon's last concert with The Who before his death on 7 September at the age of 32.

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Goofs

Rick Danko of The Band is listed in the end credits as appearing in the film, even though his segment was deleted from the final print.

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Quotes

Roger Daltrey: My main ambition right now is to get back on the road with the 'orrible 'Oo. The worst rock & roll group in the world...
Interviewer: [off] The worst?
Roger Daltrey: Yeah. You couldn't pick four more horrible geezers who make the worst noise that you've ever heard in your life!

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the opening "Smothers Brothers" clip where The Who demolish their equipment, Keith Moon's bass drum with the Who logo on it explodes, and the very same logo spirals forward to the middle of the screen. Then the words of the title of the film pop up from the bottom of the screen while Pete Townshend smashes Tommy Smothers' acoustic guitar.

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Alternate Versions

The version of the film that appears on Turner Classic Movies features The Who's Rock N' Roll Circus performance window-boxed and surrounded by flashing marquee lights in the manner of the film's original theatrical presentation.

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Connections

Referenced in The Simpsons: The Kid Is All Right (2013)

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Soundtracks

I Can See For Miles
Written by Pete Townshend
Performed by The Who
Fabulous Music Ltd.

User Reviews

Maximum R&B . . .YEEAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

This 2-disc DVD is an absolute essential for any Who fan and perhaps the only documentary film ever made that captures the essence of rock'n'roll's importance to youth culture. Its brilliance largely belongs to the irresistibly appealing personalities and unparalleled live performances of the Who, but can also be partially attributed to director Jeff Stein, who was a nineteen year-old fledgling photographer and Who freak in 1978 when he persuaded the group to front him the cash to make a movie. What results is a warts 'n' all portrait of the most honest, inspired, and inspiring of rock's superheroes.

The film begins with the now-infamous performance of 'My Generation' on the Smothers Brothers show and never slows down. Included are hilarious outtakes of staged antics originally intended for a Monkees-style TV show that never aired, a wonderfully irreverent segment featuring John Entwistle using gold records for target practice on the lawn of his estate, priceless video and still photography of Keith Moon at his hotel room-smashing best, and vintage interview material with Townshend, charting his development from insolent young mod (at one point, when asked to comment on the relative quality of the Beatles' music by a smug British TV host, he refers to the Fab Four as "flippin' lousy") to a soul-searching artist trying to find meaningful space for himself in a form he fears he has outgrown. There are liberal doses from 'Tommy' and 'Who's Next,' but equal attention is paid to the group's early mod years and their more radio-friendly late-seventies era releases. Included in its entirety is the group's performance of 'A Quick One' from "The Rolling Stones' Rock 'n' Roll Circus," a TV show produced by the Stones which was never aired due to the Stones' opinion that they had been badly upstaged by the Who (only a fragment of the same clip was featured in the theatrical release of the film due to copyright restrictions). Surprisingly absent is any material from 'Quadrophenia,' an unexplained omission but one that doesn't really glare given that the footage is not arranged chronologically.

None of the Who's studio releases ever equaled their brilliance onstage, and Stein loads the film with impossibly hot concert footage, including mind-blowing performances (some borrowed from the Woodstock film) of live staples 'Young Man Blues,' 'Pinball Wizard,' 'See Me Feel Me/Listening to You,' and 'Sparks.'

Indirectly, 'The Kids are Alright' is also a cautionary tale: we see Moon transformed in a mere ten years from a lean young prankster into a bloated caricature of himself (Moon died shortly before the film was released; his last performance with the group was the concert at Shepperton Studios staged for the film at Jeff Stein's request). We see Townshend joking about his hearing loss and struggling with his fear of growing old and irrelevant. Entwistle dryly remarks, 'I'm too old to enjoy my money;' Roger Daltrey dismisses the cultural importance of rock music, stating flatly that 'it doesn't stand up.' Townshend confesses his frustration at the pressure he feels to satisfy the expectations of the group's army of frenzied fans. By the end, the group seems weary of itself and its overblown reputation.

Nevertheless, the film ends on a note of triumph, with a manic encore at Shepperton of "Won't Get Fooled Again," climaxing with a slo-mo shot of Townshend leaping and then sliding across the stage on his knees, followed by an end-credit coda of "Rock is Dead (Long Live Rock)". The DVD set includes director commentary, a recent interview with Daltrey, Who trivia quizzes, and isolated tracks of John Entwistle's extraordinary bass work on several classic tunes.

Definitive evidence of the Who's stature as one of the most influential and inimitable of the titans of rock. Anyone who loves the power and energy of a live rock performance will come away from this film slack-jawed and looking around for a guitar to smash.