Chapter Text
Almost 40 years after the film’s release, a collection of memorabilia for Paul McCartney’s movie Give My Regards to Broad Street sold at auction for just £35. The collection included a sweatshirt, the C64 game, a gala invite, and a promotional VHS tape. This is in a world where vintage Wings t-shirts sometimes sell for £300.
Very few people remember this movie at all. And of those that do, not many remember it fondly. If you look for opinions you will find many knobs on podcasts dismissing it completely. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a defence of Broad Street that takes it seriously.
There are many essays that could be written about this film: why did Paul make it the way he did? Why did it fail so spectacularly? But what I really want is for more people to watch and enjoy the movie. So this essay is a sort-of guided tour of some of the things I find interesting and moving about Give My Regards to Broad Street.
In some ways, I think Paul’s accessibility as a songwriter has gone against him as a filmmaker. Many of the films that interest him are difficult, artsy ones, that require the viewer to work for their supper[1]. His music does not fit that mould. It certainly rewards close examination, but it rarely requires it. His music is often immediately catchy and memorable, sometimes even mocked for being too populist. Like Magical Mystery Tour before it, Give My Regards To Broad Street was not what people expected from Paul. Rather than think hard about what he was aiming for, most assumed he had simply failed entirely and dismissed the movie.
They expected Summer Holiday with Cliff Richard and they got something more like A Matter of Life and Death[2], La Dolce Vita, or Mulholland Drive. Only, without the good director[3].
Broad Street is actually a movie about Paul’s grief over John’s death, and the ways that grief was complicated by lingering hurt from the break-up of the Beatles. Which makes the critical reception it received a tragedy upon tragedy. Paul invites us into his “daydream” where he shows us what’s on his mind. It doesn’t really work as a straightforward narrative, but that’s not what it’s supposed to be.
The bulk of the movie takes place within a dream sequence. From the moment the dream begins, Paul is seen in this hawaiian shirt:
Now this movie did have a costume designer (a very successful one, in fact, Milena Canonero has 4 Oscars). But this is Paul’s own shirt. He can be seen wearing it during a Wings rehearsal in 1979[4]. But much more importantly for this essay: he wore it in Montserrat.
When John was murdered, there was no funeral service, and there is no grave. I feel strongly about the power of the Irish Wake, and I can’t express how important I think ceremony is to the process of mourning. I think Paul felt similarly (he does have Irish heritage) so he organised a kind of wake for John. Not that he called it that. He called it making an album.
George Martin’s recording studio in Montserrat had opened in 1979. On February 1st 1981 (less than two months after John’s death) Paul and his family arrived at the studio to record what would become the Tug of War album. He invited friends, including Ringo and Barbara, Denny Laine, and Carl Perkins. He grieved[5]. And he wore this shirt:
Paul is sentimental about clothes, and I don’t think it was any kind of accident that he wears this particular shirt for the whole of the main dream sequence of this movie[6].
I say “main dream sequence” because there are actually dreams within that dream (how many decades before Inception?). Paul “falls asleep” within the first 3 minutes of the film, and at the end there’s less than 2 minutes between him waking and the credits rolling. But all the way through the movie Paul (already a character in a dream) drifts off into sub-dreams. The longest one is accompanied by a George Martin arrangement of Eleanor Rigby called Eleanor’s Dream.
We’re all taught from a young age that the “it was all a dream” trope is a terrible ending, and most people accept that without question. It’s commonly used as a criticism of Broad Street. I think the reason the rule exists is that dream sequences are often a cop-out. They’re used when the writer has gotten themselves in a narrative hole and instead of fixing it they wash their hands of it (e.g. the Dallas shower reveal). So the rule is: no dreams. But Paul McCartney is not one to be bound by conventional wisdom for its own sake. Paul McCartney does what he wants[7].
The “it was all a dream” cop-out is not what is happening in Broad Street. The film makes it very clear at the beginning: we are now entering a dream sequence. Paul drifts off, the colours change, and we enter a surreal world of talking cars that go at ridiculous speeds[8]. Paul is not copping out of a storytelling dilemma, rather he is creating a storytelling environment that allows him to approach difficult topics in abstract and indirect ways. Paul wakes up and says “must have been daydreaming”. It’s not - surprise! None of what you watched has any meaning or value. It’s - there we go, our exploration of Paul’s innermost thoughts is over.
It may be that Paul feels the need to frame the main dream like this because of his concern for bringing his audience with him. As early as 1966 he was discussing this problem in interviews[9]. If you go too far into the avant garde you lose people. Some will argue that the film would be more interesting and/or brave if it just went straight for the surreal atmosphere, but personally I like that Paul tells us explicitly that we’re getting a glimpse into his psyche.
Paul has spoken about the surreality of dreams in interviews (back when anyone ever asked him about Broad Street). Dreams are weird, strange things happen and we accept that. Things that happen in a dream don’t have to follow logically.
In an interview with Henry Kelly[10] shortly after the film’s release Paul said:
“Your dreams are very illogical, and very strange … you have these dreams, y'know, somebody’s arm gets lopped off then the next little bit of the dream the arm’s back on again or something. And we all know that, we know that dreams are really illogical things. But when you see them in films, filmmakers normally try to make a bit of sense out of it, but we decided to put it exactly as it happens.”
He goes on to say that they made an active decision not to follow Bergman, and have the whole film surreal, instead they chose to “play a slightly dangerous line and go into sort of the weird dream sequence, and keep it like dreams really are.”
Later in the same interview Henry says “you’re quoted as saying 'the truth of my life is in that film’ “[11]. Paul responds with embarrassed joking, distancing himself from the quote, but I think he meant it originally. The truth of Paul’s life is in the film, and it’s expressed in abstract imagery because he can’t directly address it. Which means if the viewer can’t find it in the movie, Paul can’t very well explain it for them afterwards.
Of course it’s perfectly possible to enjoy the film at a surface level. Some of the sequences in the main dream are great fun. My favourites include Paul’s fantasy car (complete with talking electronic personal assistant, in 1984!), and the part where Ringo misses three whole songs because he’s searching through boxes of instruments for his brushes.
But overall I don’t think this movie is the light-hearted romp it was interpreted as. The outer dream layer is fantastical and whimsical, but the deeper layer is often threatening and disconcerting, especially the long inner sequence we’ll call Eleanor’s Dream. And isn’t that interesting, coming from Paul McCartney? Outwardly charming and silly, but with a genuinely weird inner life, not unexamined, but inexpressible.
To be clear: I don't hold to the common opinion that Paul was accidentally expressing these ideas through this film. He can come across as lacking introspection in interviews, but I don’t think that’s a true reflection of the man so much as the character he’s created. In the outer dream sequence Paul is breezy, and insistent that everything is fine. But as he delves deeper we see that he is aware of his own troubled mind.
While I don’t think the film is intended to tell any true stories literally, I do think many of the characters and events are representative of people in his life and things that have happened to him. So I’m going to offer some of my interpretations.
Harry represents John. Paul believes in Harry, despite the fact that his criminal past makes everyone else suspicious of him. The nature of Paul’s belief in Harry is extremely interesting. Paul repeatedly imagines betrayals by Harry, from brief and silly, to extended and harrowing. Paul’s faith is born of sheer determination. He has decided to trust Harry, so he does, and he is proud of it. Harry’s death in Eleanor’s Dream is followed by a voice saying “that’s it, you’re finished. What are you going to do now?”. Closely followed by a pained yell from Paul.
After Harry, the most obvious allusion is the looming threat of Mr Rath. Paul has said that he had nightmares about Allen Klein as an evil dentist. Mr Rath is not given the dignity of any lines, but he is a heavy presence in the outer layer, and in the inner dream layer he’s extremely dangerous. It’s not very clear exactly who or what Mr Rath is, but he definitely wants to steal Paul’s music business. He also delivers the final blow to an already beaten Harry.
Jim (Ralph Richardson) rather transparently represents Paul’s father. It is astonishing how working with a really high-calibre actor elevates Paul’s work. This scene is lovely, though eerie. Immediately after leaving Eleanor’s Dream and driving around London (to the tune of of Band On The Run), Paul visits Jim in the upper rooms of the Old Justice pub. The room contains many references back to Eleanor’s Dream (see examples in chapter 2). It feels full of symbolism (who or what does the monkey represent?). Jim, speaking mostly in aphorisms and Shakespeare quotes[12], laments the fact that Paul is always in a hurry to somewhere else, and wants Paul to stay and talk, but there’s no real communication there. It makes me think of ancient Greek representations of the afterlife.
There are several things that feel significant, but I’m less certain of my interpretation.
There’s a group of four men who appear in most of the office scenes, and several times during Eleanor’s Dream. They don’t have much to differentiate between them, and they don’t have any noteworthy lines. They are part of Paul’s organisation, but they are open to working with Rath. They’re the ones preparing to sign with Rath as the clock approaches midnight. One of them reminded me of George Harrison for some reason, which may have inspired me to consider that they may represent the Beatles-as-businessmen.
The sequence upstairs in the warehouse type rehearsal studio may represent Paul’s time in Wings. He’s wearing a flight jacket similar to the one he wore in videos like Spin It On, and he’s joined by a series of musicians.
Within the main dream sequence–the tone of which is very light and silly–Paul rescues Harry from a slightly ridiculous predicament. It is a childish fantasy through and through, and the ending is cheesy. But maybe it’s appropriate that the tone is childish; Paul is daydreaming about being able to rescue John! And he defeats Klein at the stroke of midnight like a hero in a fairytale[13]. It’s notable that throughout this sequence, despite the looming crisis, Paul goes on working and making music[14].
Eleanor’s Dream is much more nightmarish in tone. In this sequence Paul fails to rescue Harry, who is both villain and victim. The changes of perspective, costume, and set are all more sudden and disconcerting. The Klein-allegory (Mr. Rath) is more directly violent. In this sequence we see an allegory for the breakup of the Beatles (Harry pushing the boat out to fall off the waterfall), and John's death (Harry’s stabbing). Though of course these are surreal abstract images; they don’t map perfectly onto the events they represent.
I think Paul bared his soul in making this movie. He doesn’t have the miraculous instinctive facility with film-making that he does with music, he doesn’t have the core set of staunch supporters that someone like Fellini or Bergman does, people who will work hard to unearth the value in his movies. He has an undeserved reputation for vacuousness which many took for granted as they watched. And they missed that Paul was trying to speak about his grief, when words just weren’t enough.
Footnotes:
1 Paul has mentioned both Fellini and Bergman in interviews. [ return to text ]
2 Comparison has been drawn before between Powell & Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death and Paul's music video for Beautiful Night. [ return to text ]
3 Sorry Peter Webb, but your career highlight is 2 episodes of popular 70s children’s TV show Rainbow. [ return to text ]
4 Wings rehearsal 1979 singing Twenty Flight Rock no less. [ return to text ]
5 The story of Carl Perkins' song My Old Friend. [ return to text ]
6 Another example of Paul's sentimentality about clothes is the petal shirt he wore during the Get Back sessions. Paul kept it for a long time, and brought it with him to New Orleans in 1975, where he hoped John might join him. [ return to text ]
7 Pete Townshend once said "It’s wonderful! It’s gauche! It’s Paul McCartney!" [ return to text ]
8 The official book for the film calls the car "a lovingly customised Ford, once the cheapest car on the market, now a cherished collector’s item". A metaphor for Paul’s working class background perhaps? [ return to text ]
9 I cannot for the life of me find this interview. Paul speaks about the songs on Revolver, and discusses the tape loops on Tomorrow Never Knows. He then talks about how they (the Beatles) could go really off the wall, but they prefer to bring the audience along with them. Any suggestions, please get in touch: [email protected]
[edited to add: Thanks to bluesuburbanskies@tumblr for this link: Understanding Lennon/McCartney episode 1 (1:20:52). This interview is from Oct 1966.] [ return to text ]
10 Paul interviewed by Henry Kelly on Good Morning Britain. [ return to text ]
11 If anyone can find the original source of this quote I’d be forever grateful. [ return to text ]
12 Specifically Hamlet, a play about a suicidal prince who meets the ghost of his father. [ return to text ]
13 During the denouement we see an explicit reference to Give My Regards to Broadway, the song from which the movie gets its name. As Harry descends the stairs of Paul's art deco office reception, the group gathered at the front desk sing a modified version of the song. It is originally from the musical play Little Johnny Jones (1904), and is sung by the title character as he stays in England while his friend sails to America. The song also gave its name to another musical, in which the protagonist must accept that his vaudeville act has broken up. [ return to text ]
14 During the period of making this film Paul made 3 studio albums, 2 of which went to number 1. [ return to text ]