Absolute Beginners *** (1986, Eddie O’Connell, Patsy Kensit, David Bowie, Ray Davies, James Fox) Classic Movie Review 3257

Director Julien Temple’s 1986 ambitious attempt to adapt Colin MacInnes’s 1959 realistic novel about youth and racism in London into a big-budget fantasy musical fails to hit enough of the right notes. However it does play some nice tunes and it is nothing like as absolutely awful as many critics suggested when it first came out.

Some musical numbers like David Bowie’s title song ‘Absolute Beginners’ and Slim Gaillard’s ‘Selling Out’ work well, but others fall flat. The uncharismatic lead performances from Eddie O’Connell and Patsy Kensit don’t help as 19-year-old photographer Colin and the model Crepe Suzette he is hopelessly in love with. To compensate, though, there’s excellent support from Bowie as Vendice Partners, Ray Davies as Colin’s dad Arthur and James Fox as Henley of Mayfair, Dressmaker to the Queen, plus a multitude of British worthies.

With Crepe Suzette obsessed with herself, fashion and her modelling career, Colin gives up and gets involved with a pop promoter to try to crack the big time, while racial tension is brewing in London’s Notting Hill area where Colin lives. One of the incidents in the novel is based on the Notting Hill race riots of August 1958.

Despite waves of publicity, producers Stephen Woolley, Chris Brown, Al Clark and Nik Powell’s ambitious movie was a critical and a costly financial flop, but it remains fascinating and has improved with age. This very British project didn’t travel well and took only $909,960 at the US box office.

Creator Michael Hamlyn and writers Richard Burridge, Christopher Wicking, Don MacPherson and Terry Johnson (additional dialogue) make a shaky job of adapting MacInnes’s novel. But cameraman Oliver Stapleton’s widescreen cinematography is distinguished, John Beard’s set designs are outstanding and there are numbers by David Bowie (Absolute Beginners and That’s Motivation), Sade (Killer Blow), the Style Council (Have You Ever Had It Blue?), Va Va Voom (Gil Evans) and Ray Davies (Quiet Life) to relish.

O’Connell largely disappeared to TV, but returned as Bruno in Sexy Beast (2000), though Kensit has very much kept in the public eye (Lethal Weapon 2, Emmerdale, Holby City).

It was the last film of adored character actress Irene Handl, aged 83, as Mrs Larkin. Also in the cast are Lionel Blair as record producer Harry Charms, Steven Berkoff, Mandy Rice-Davies, Eve Ferret, Tony Hippolyte, Graham Fletcher-Cook, Joe McKenna, Sade (Sade Adu), Tenpole Tudor (Edward Tudor-Pole), Bruce Payne, Alan Freeman, Anita Morris, Paul Rhys, Julian Firth, Chris Pitt, Gary Beadle, Robbie Coltrane, Jess Conrad, Smiley Culture, Ronald Fraser, Peter Hugo-Daly, Sylvia Syms, Colin Jeavons, Carmen Ejogo and Sandie Shaw.

Ah the golden days of Virgin, Goldcrest, Palace and Orion! – all gone from the movie business.

Tragically, David Bowie died on 10 January 2015 at the age of 69 after an 18-month battle with cancer. The Seventies and Eighties saw him combine his glittering pop career with memorable appearances in films including The Man Who Fell To Earth, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, The Hunger and Absolute Beginners – as well as a memorable turn as the Goblin King in the fantasy Labyrinth.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3257

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