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ABBA: The Movie

ABBA: The Movie
Abbamovieposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Lasse Hallström
Produced by Stig Anderson
Reg Grundy
Written by Lasse Hallström
Robert Caswell
Starring Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Benny Andersson
Björn Ulvaeus
Agnetha Fältskog
Robert Hughes
Tom Oliver
Music by Stig Anderson
Benny Andersson
Björn Ulvaeus
Cinematography Jack Churchill
Paul Onorato
Edited by Lasse Hallström
Malou Hallström
Ulf Neidermar
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
  • 15 December 1977 (1977-12-15) (Australia)
  • 26 December 1977 (1977-12-26) (Sweden)
Running time
97 minutes
Country Australia
Sweden
Language English
Swedish
Box office SEK 5,347,122

ABBA: The Movie is a 1977 documentary film about the pop group ABBA's Australian tour. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, who directed most of the group's videos. The film has become a cult film among ABBA fans. Its release coincided with the release of ABBA: The Album, the group's fifth studio album, and features many songs from that album as well as many of their earlier hits, and one, "Get on the Carousel", unavailable anywhere else.

The film has a very thin plot which is no more than a vehicle to link together the concert footage. It concerns the adventures of Ashley Wallace (Robert Hughes), a naïve DJ on Radio 2TW, who normally presents a through-the-night country and western-themed show. In spite of this, he is sent by the station's boss (Bruce Barry) to get an in-depth interview ("Not an interview, a dialogue", demands his boss) with the group, which is to be aired on the day ABBA leave Australia. Needless to say, Ashley, who has never done an interview before, singularly fails, mainly because he has forgotten to pack his press card, although the fact that he is unable to buy a ticket doesn't help matters either. Armed with his trusty reel-to-reel tape recorder, Ashley is forced to follow the group all over Australia, beginning in Sydney, and then travelling, in order, to Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne, experiencing repeated run-ins with the group's very protective bodyguard (Tom Oliver), as well as his increasingly exasperated boss. Throughout the movie, we see Ashley interviewing members of the public, asking them if and why they like ABBA. Almost all the comments are positive, but he interviews a man who is driven mad by his ABBA-obsessed twelve-year-old, and another girl who thinks ABBA are over-the-top.

Eventually, Ashley has an unbelievably lucky chance encounter with Stig Anderson, the group's manager, in the foyer of ABBA's hotel, who agrees to arrange an interview, and gives him tickets to that evening's concert. But Ashley sleeps in and misses the appointed interview time. Just as Ashley has given up hope, (by this time, he doesn't even care that his press card has finally arrived), he steps into an elevator and finds himself face-to-face with ABBA. They agree to give him an interview, and he leaves Melbourne just in time to meet the deadline for the radio show to go out on-air. He puts together the final edit in the back of a taxi on the way back from the airport, as ABBA depart Australia for Europe. With only minutes to go, Ashley makes it back to the radio station where, having set the tape up on the studio's playback machine, he relaxes at his control desk to listen as the interview—which he worked so long and hard to obtain—is broadcast over the airwaves Down Under.


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