Mods and sods – Remembering Quadrophenia at 40 | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Mods and sods – Remem­ber­ing Quadrophe­nia at 40

13 Oct 2019

Words by Lynsey Ford

A person riding a motorcycle on a dirt road, wearing a dark jacket.
A person riding a motorcycle on a dirt road, wearing a dark jacket.
Based on The Who’s 1973 rock opera, Franc Roddam’s Brit dra­ma remains a thrilling tes­ta­ment to youth in revolt.

Based on The Who’s sem­i­nal 1973 rock opera, Quadrophe­nia charts the youth move­ment and bloody riots between the Mods and the Rock­ers in the pic­turesque sea­side resort of Brighton in the Sum­mer of 64. Orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived by Pete Town­shend dur­ing the mod revival of the ear­ly 70s, the album and film were inspired by the true-life tragedy of a young mod com­mit­ting sui­cide off the tip of Beachy Head.

Town­shend also want­ed the band to recon­nect with their roots by acknowl­edg­ing the loy­al­ty of the West Lon­don mods who fol­lowed their ear­ly gigs at the Gold­hawk Road social club in Shep­herds Bush.

Quadrophe­nia cen­tres around the mis­ad­ven­tures of trou­bled teen Jim­my Coop­er (Phil Daniels), a low­er mid­dle-class Lon­don mod with schiz­o­phre­nia caught up in a monot­o­nous, claus­tro­pho­bic 9 – 5 exis­tence as the post boy’ for a com­pa­ny mail­ing service.

An out­sider who is rou­tine­ly dis­missed, ridiculed and chas­tised by his war­ring par­ents (Michael Elph­ick and Kate Williams), vac­u­ous sis­ter, Yvonne (Kim Neve), and dour col­leagues, Jim­my finds an out­let through The Who’s music, a stash of porn, use of blue amphet­a­mines, and week­end trips to Brighton. Feel­ing an affin­i­ty with the dis­en­fran­chised mods, Jimmy’s time is spent lust­ing after the unob­tain­able Steph (Leslie Ash), procur­ing uppers from wheel­er-deal­er push­er Fer­dy (Trevor Laird), and fight­ing with the burly leather-clad rock­ers upon the promenade.

Soon Jim­my becomes increas­ing­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with his tribe after he encoun­ters a series of dev­as­tat­ing betray­als in the after­math of the Brighton Beach riots between 600 mods and rock­ers. Thrown out of the fam­i­ly home for his police arrest and addic­tion to amphet­a­mines, Jim­my resigns from his menial job in order to forge his own iden­ti­ty. Kei­th Her­riot (Ray Win­stone), a child­hood friend and rock­er, reminds him that, Under­neath, we’re all the same, ain’t we?” But Jim­my remains defi­ant. I don’t want to be the same as every­one else, that’s why I became a mod.”

The ethe­re­al Steph cru­el­ly dis­miss­es her fling with Jim­my by flaunt­ing her new rela­tion­ship with Jimmy’s best friend” Dave (Mark Wingett) in front of him. His prized scoot­er is crushed under the pass­ing wheels of a Lon­don dou­ble deck­er, sig­ni­fy­ing the end of his long-cher­ished dream to be the face” of the Brighton mod move­ment. Squan­der­ing his sev­er­ance pay on more blues” which alle­vi­ates his alien­ation from the group, Jimmy’s mor­ti­fied to dis­cov­er his mod idol, the ice-cool gang leader Ace Face’, (Sting) – who had pre­vi­ous­ly thumbed his nose at a mag­is­trate fine – has sold out” by work­ing for the estab­lish­ment as a sub­servient, low­ly bell hop, cow tow­ing to the rich clien­tele at Brighton’s Grand Hotel.

Crowd of people sitting and lying on a pebbly beach, wearing casual clothing. Appears to be a scene of people gathering or protesting on a seaside location.

The Who remain the dri­ving force behind Quadrophe­nia, and their roles are clev­er­ly inter­wo­ven with­in the nar­ra­tive frame­work by first-time direc­tor and screen­writer Franc Rod­dam. Jimmy’s split per­son­al­i­ty is reflect­ed through four themes of The Who’s melodies rep­re­sent­ing the indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics of the super­group; Help­less Dancer’ (Roger Dal­trey), Is it Me?’ (John Entwistle), Bell Boy’ (Kei­th Moon) and Love, Reign o’er Me’ (Town­shend). Town­shend stares out non­cha­lant­ly through Jimmy’s shrine of bed­room clip­pings devot­ed to porn and police riots. The young mods head bang along in sol­i­dar­i­ty to My Gen­er­a­tion” dur­ing an illic­it house rave and orgy at a friend’s semi, whilst Mr Coop­er and Jim­my row against the back­drop of The Who per­form­ing on Ready Steady Go.

Filmed over five weeks across the Sus­sex coast, Willes­den, Shep­herds Bush and South­gate, Rod­dam encour­aged the lead­ing cast of 40 to socialise togeth­er at mod par­ties, so they could learn how to dance and fight (like a mod). The cast had to han­dle their Lam­bret­ta scoot­ers with­in a month under the guid­ance of trained offi­cers at The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Acad­e­my in Hen­don. Film­ing the final scene on the first day of film­ing, Rod­dam cap­tures the des­o­late Jim­my as the for­lorn fig­ure tee­ter­ing over the rocky precipice of Beachy Head – with noth­ing left to live (or die) for.

Orig­i­nal­ly John­ny Rot­ten of the Sex Pis­tols had been tout­ed for role of the sneer­ing, ungain­ly Jim­my and was screen-test­ed but the insur­ers were reluc­tant to back him after his anti-estab­lish­ment views on The Queen- believ­ing him to be an unre­li­able for a 60-day shoot. Phil Daniels, how­ev­er, is an inspired choice as the angst-rid­den Jim­my who under­takes a painful, ardu­ous voy­age of self-dis­cov­ery between Lon­don and Brighton- only to find his world falling apart, cul­mi­nat­ing in the demo­li­tion of Ace Face’s prized scoot­er upon the crash­ing waves.

Giv­en an X rat­ing, Quadrophe­nia was con­sid­ered a com­mer­cial flop upon its release in 1979, and was crit­i­cised for glam­or­is­ing vio­lence in the midst of a British punk rev­o­lu­tion cel­e­brat­ed through the iconog­ra­phy of The Clash and The Stran­glers. Forty years on, it res­onates as a mov­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to one man’s strug­gle to fit in and con­form to society’s expectations.

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