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The Tommy Steele Story

The Tommy Steele Story is a 1957 British film directed by Gerard Bryant and starring Tommy Steele, dramatising Steele's rise to fame as a teen idol.[2] Along with Rock You Sinners, it was one of the first British films to feature rock and roll.[3] In the US, where Steele was not well-known, the film was released under the title Rock Around the World.[4][5] The film was announced in January 1957, three months after the release of Steele's first single "Rock with the Caveman".[6][7]

The Tommy Steele Story
UK poster by Tom Chantrell
Directed byGerard Bryant
Written byNorman Hudis
Produced byHerbert Smith
executive
Stuart Levy
Nat Cohen
Peter Rogers
StarringTommy Steele
CinematographyPeter Hennessy
Edited byAnn Chegwidden
Production
company
Distributed byAnglo-Amalgamated (UK)
AIP (US)
Release date
  • 1957 (1957)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£15,000[1]

Plot

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Tommy Steele lives with his mother and father in their London home. He works with a bellboy until he injures his spine doing judo. In hospital he is given a guitar to help with his therapy and he starts to play to entertain patients and staff. He works on an ocean liner, performing in his spare time, and gets a job playing in a coffee bar. He is popular with audiences and gets a recording contract.

Cast

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Production

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Steele was approached to make the film by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy. He later wrote in his memoirs, "They were quite different from that other British film mogul, J. Arthur Rank. Where Rank was C. Aubrey Smith, Cohen and Levy were Abbott and Costello. They didn't so much as hold a meeting as do an act."[8] He added "there was a degree of madness about them – but you had to be mad to take the chances they took – with a little eccentricity for good measure."[9]

"We knew that if we could sign him in time we'd have a winner," said Cohen.[10]

Steele agreed to do the film. He met with Mike Pratt and Lionel Bart and they spent a month writing the songs. Two weeks later the film was shot.[9] Bart considered the film premature, reflecting "Here's this guy, he's only 20, he ain't even started his story".[11] He was paid £3,000 for the lead role.[12]

Norman Hudis was hired to write the script by Peter Rodgers. Hudis did it in ten days saying "it was one of the easiest I've ever done" as "I was a cockney like Tommy Steele. I came from the same sort of street: I knew how he talked. I knew how he thought." Hudis felt it "was an astute and alert move to make the subject but at most I thought it would be a sterling support film. The success of the film and the way it rocketed to first feature status knocked me for six."[13]

Steele says director Gerald Bryant "was more like a poet than a showman."[9]

Reception

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Box office

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According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was "in the money" at the British box office in 1957.[14] According to another account, The Tommy Steele Story was the 13th most popular film at the British box office in 1957.[15] Steele was voted the seventh most popular star in Britain for that year.[16]

Kine Weekly claimed in 1959 the success of the movie was a turning point in the fortunes of Anglo Amalgamated. "Cohen and Levy still blush at the budget but the picture is regarded as a Wardour Street phenomenon. It made a fortune within its first year and continues to make money in every corner of the world it plays."[7]

Russian release

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In 1959, The Tommy Steele Story became one of the few British films shown in the Soviet Union after Steele made a three-day promotional visit to Moscow for a screening at the Kremlin.[17][18][nb 1]

Critical

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The Tommy Steele Story received a generally positive critical reception. Writing in Melody Maker, Tony Brown deemed Steele "a natural", commenting "he can amble in front of the cameras cocking a snook at RADA technique and still go over with a bang". Brown criticised the film's plot as having "no dramatic impact. Every thing, it seems, happened so easily", but praised the film's production value and concluded "it must be counted as a triumph for the Bermondsey boy. There should be a few red faces along Tin Pan Alley when it goes the rounds".[19] An uncredited writer for Bristol Evening Post praised Steele's performance in an "engaging" film that "could so easily have been embarrassing to anyone not addicted to the youth" [20]

Soundtrack

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The Tommy Steele Story
 
Soundtrack album by
Tommy Steele with the Steelmen
ReleasedMay 1957
GenreRock and roll
LabelDecca Records
Tommy Steele with the Steelmen chronology
Tommy Steele Stage Show
(1957) 		The Tommy Steele Story
(1957) 		The Duke Wore Jeans
(1958)

The Tommy Steele Story is the first soundtrack album and the second album release by Tommy Steele, issued as a 10-inch LP by Decca in May 1957. The album's twelve songs were composed quickly by Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, with Steele co-writing all but one.[11][21] The soundtrack features a broader range of genres than Steele's previous releases, with Bart having convinced Norman Hudis that "they couldn't all be rock and roll songs if they were doing [Tommy's] story. He's a cockney kid, he's been in the merchant navy, so let's have some cockney songs, and let's have some calypso."[11][22]

The soundtrack album was the first UK number one album by a British act.[11][23] Its two singles, "Butterfingers" and the double A-side "Water, Water" / "A Handful of Songs", were both top-ten hits on the UK Singles Chart.[24][25] In 1958, "A Handful of Songs" received the Ivor Novello Award for Most Outstanding Song of the Year, Musically and Lyrically.[26] Tim Rice has described the song as "a lovely composition, a show song disguised as a pop song and it showed the way both of them were heading."[27]

Track listing

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Side one

  1. "Take Me Back, Baby" – 2:04
  2. "Butterfingers" – 2:20
  3. "I Like" – 1:43
  4. "A Handful of Songs" – 2:07
  5. "You Gotta Go" – 3:19
  6. "Water, Water" – 2:19
  7. "Cannibal Pot" – 1:55

Side two

  2. "Will It Be You" – 2:09
  3. "Two Eyes" – 1:46
  4. "Build Up" – 2:24
  5. "Time to Kill" – 2:00
  6. "Elevator Rock" – 1:51
  7. "Doomsday Rock" – 2:01
  8. "Teenage Party" – 2:22

Notes

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  1. ^ During the trip, USSR Minister of Culture Nikolai Mikhailov is reported to have told Steele he looked like "a member of the Young Communist League".[18]

References

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  1. ^ Andrew Caine Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004p.117
  2. ^ ""THE TOMMY STEELE STORY"". The Australian Women's Weekly. 27 November 1957. p. 42. Retrieved 6 May 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Tommy Steele Story, The (1957)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  4. ^ Gary A. Smith, American International Pictures: The Golden Years, Bear Manor Media 2014 p 59
  5. ^ "The Story of Tommy Steele". The Christian Science Monitor. 10 October 1957. p. 7.
  6. ^ "Tommy Steele gets rolling" (PDF). Melody Maker. 12 January 1957. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  7. ^ a b "The Anglo Amalgamated Story". Kine Weekly. 31 December 1959. p. 4-5.
  8. ^ Steele p 270
  9. ^ a b c Steele p 271
  10. ^ "14 Songs in Anglo's Tommy Steele Story". Kine Weekly. 7 March 1957. p. 21.
  11. ^ a b c d Stafford, David; Stafford, Caroline (12 December 2011). Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be: The Lionel Bart Story. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857127426. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
  12. ^ David Shipman The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, London: Angus & Robertson, 1972 p.494
  13. ^ "It just happened". Kinematograph Weekly. 28 January 1960. p. 27.
  14. ^ Billings, Josh (12 December 1957). "Others in the money". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.
  15. ^ LINDSAY ANDERSON, and DAVID DENT (8 January 1958). "Time For New Ideas". The Times. London. p. 9 – via The Times Digital Archive.
  16. ^ "Most Popular Film of the Year". The Times. No. 54022. London. 12 December 1957. p. 3.
  17. ^ Gale, John (9 August 1959). "The Tommy Steele (in Moscow) Story". The Observer. London. p. 1.
  18. ^ a b "Russians to see film of Tommy Steele story". Coventry Evening Telegraph: 7. 8 August 1959. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  19. ^ Brown, Tony (25 May 1957). "Tommy? He's a natural" (PDF). Melody Maker. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
  20. ^ "Steele Story". Bristol Evening Post: 2. 20 July 1957. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  21. ^ "DISC DIGEST". The Australian Women's Weekly. 19 February 1958. p. 34. Retrieved 6 May 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. ^ Frame, Pete (2007). The Restless Generation: How Rock Music Changed the Face of 1950s Britain. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857127136. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  23. ^ Mathews, Derek (2006). Tommy Steele: His Life, His Songs. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  24. ^ "Tommy Steele". Official Charts. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
  25. ^ Eder, Bruce. "Tommy Steele Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  26. ^ "The Ivors 1958". Ivors Academy. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  27. ^ Kutner, Jon; Leigh, Spencer (2010). 1,000 UK Number One Hits. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857123602. Retrieved 29 November 2022.

Notes

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