Slade in Flame
| Slade in Flame | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Richard Loncraine |
| Written by |
Andrew Birkin (screenplay) Dave Humphries (additional dialogue) |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Slade |
| Cinematography | Peter Hannan |
| Edited by | Michael Bradsell |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Visual Programme Systems (UK) |
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Release date
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January 1975 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Slade in Flame (also known as Flame) is a 1975 film starring the members of the band Slade. In 2007, BBC film critic Mark Kermode called it the "Citizen Kane of rock musicals" and included its soundtrack among the 50 greatest soundtracks in cinema's history.
Record Mirror magazine voted the film at No. 4 on the top 10 best films in February 1976.
A paperback book was released, based on the film, written by John Pidgeon. The film's book peaked at No. 3 in the best selling paperbacks according to the Sunday Times chart around April/May 1975. It was the largest printings that the published Panther had done for home market which was 250,000 copies.
In October 2007, Classic Rock Magazine listed "Slade in Flame" at No. 42 in the "Hollywood Rocks: 50 Greatest Rock Movies" list.
The film charts the history of "Flame" a fictitious group in the late 1960s who are picked up by a marketing company and taken to the top, only to break up at their zenith. The film begins with the future members of Flame playing in two rival bands, one with a singer named Jack Daniels (Alan Lake), and the other, The Undertakers, fronted by Stoker (Noddy Holder). Flame are formed from the two bands, with Charlie (Don Powell) joining on drums, making up the same line-up as the real-life Slade. They are picked up by marketing man Robert Seymour (Tom Conti) and with the help of publicity stunts the band's fortunes improve, but their former agent (played by Johnny Shannon) stakes a claim to their earnings, and uses violence to try to get his way. The band members tire of the music business and the band breaks up.
The idea for a Slade film came from manager Chas Chandler, who felt that it would be a suitable next step in the band's career. The group dismissed the idea of "a Hard Day's Night sort of slapstick, speeded-up film, runaround type thing" as too obvious. Slade were offered a number of suggestions for a movie screenplay, such as Quite a Mess, a comedy reworking of The Quatermass Experiment where Dave Hill would be the experiment of the title, only to be killed off by a "Triffid thing" in the first fifteen minutes. The band accepted Slade in Flame, as "a sort of behind-the-scenes, nitty-gritty look at the rock 'n' roll business".
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