Robert Stigwood: The 'Wood, the Bad, and the Ugly

Is it right to shove a creative executive genius into the shadows because of a few wrong choices he or she made?

Let's investigate.

The producer of many films-- from "Gallipoli" with Mel Gibson to one of my own personal favorites, "Tommy"-- and founder of the Robert Stigwood Organization (RSO) is a man called (shockingly) Robert Stigwood. In the seventies, he produced a slew of musical & music-genre movies that left a great and lasting impact on pop culture in general and the industries of music and film. Some of these films included "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1973), the first filmed rock opera, "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), an absolutely unmitigated blockbuster, and "Grease" (1978), the most commercially successful movie musical of all time.

However, in the world of people who have way too much free time on their hands (of which I am a proud, card-carrying member), he is the target of a great deal of criticism because of a few blunders.

These blunders are generally categorized as "Tommy" (1975), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1979), and "Grease 2" (1982), but let's also not forget his collaboration with Rupert Murdoch, the second-tier King of Ill Repute, on "Gallipoli."

I held a round-table discussion (as I said, too much free time) some months ago about what Mr. Stigwood had really done wrong. Joining me were a guy whose second-favorite movie of all time was 1973's "Superstar," a young woman who was with us because she was waiting for her boyfriend to get back home and let her into her apartment, and a guy who had no idea what we were talking about-- our moderator. "Superstar" man (let's call him "Tyler") brought up the point that "Sgt. Pepper" was the worst example of blatant, over-the-top grandiosity in Hollywood history, second only to Joseph L. Mankiewicz' "Cleopatra," which was so big it nearly bankrupted Fox. Lockout Girl ("Mary") likened his Murdoch association with collaborating with the enemy before a huge war, then proceeded to list offenses against every movie he was involved in producing-- except "Evita."

She called "Tommy" a glorified Vegas roadshow, "Superstar" a confused and hard-to-follow mess of Biblical misinterpretation, and "Grease" a kind of plague responsible for unleashing John Travolta's dance moves upon the unsuspecting world.

The facts.

"Tommy" director Ken Russell was not allowed to do a second Who film for a reason: his interpretation of one of rock's crowning achievements was, according to many critics, made up of nothing but expensive costumes, distractingly annoying synthesizer background music, and Ann-Margret writhing around in chocolate/soap suds/beans. The band said that Russell did not get the point of "Tommy" at all; his vision was of a world where money trumps everything, even family values and the need to care for the vulnerable. Note: Russell was the bad guy.

(Sidebar: "Tommy" is still one of my all-time favorites. It is a largely epic story that still has good ideas, good performances, and at-the-very-least-half-decent versions of some of rock's most famous songs.)

The idea of 1973's "Superstar" is a play within the play. This is established very definitely in the film's opening scene, in which a group of hippies travel out into the middle of the Israeli desert and dress in mostly Biblical costumes, followed by a re-enactment of the story. It is adequately paced, well-worded, and sure-footed... does that spell "hard to follow" or "messy"? If there is anything wrong with it, it is the placing of eclectic twentieth-century music (everything from rock to ragtime) in 1st-century Judea, which can be blamed (if blame is sought) on Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the writers, not Stigwood, the producer.

But John Travolta is pretty disturbing.

Anyway, everyone makes bad choices. And aside from the criminally under-regulated Hollywood studios of Yore, who did Stigwood's bad choices (let's just call them "Grease 2" and "Sgt. Pepper") really hurt? For crying out loud, they're movies, Mary!

Robert Stigwood, you can sleep easy (although I doubt your resumee has been keeping you up nights).

Sidenote to my reader(s): You must go to my Followers link and investigate the Eviville blog you will find there. It is ingenious. So in-joy it.