| ABBA - THE MOVIE There have been many times in my life that I have gotten excited over something and one of them has to be the recent release of ABBA The Movie on DVD. Not many people can relate to this type of excitement other than a fan reminiscing of something that was so fantastic and meant so much in someone’s life, and I’m talking about ABBA and their movie that was rated as the number 7 box office seller of 1977! To all of the people out there discovering this type of hype for the first time, I really hope you enjoy it. I’ve been an ABBA fan for many years, far more than I care to remember as, like many others, I’m starting to show my age where ABBA are concerned, and yet after all these years their music, their story, their glory are filled with wonderful memories, which I have ABBA to thank for. I’m sure there are many of us ABBA fans, more old than new, who feel the same way. One of my most exciting times as an ABBA fan was really getting into ‘The Album’ when it first came out in December 1977. I was in England at the time visiting family, and as an eager 10 year old had to have that record. Alas, and due to lack of funds, it was many years away, but a pre-recorded cassette sufficed in the meantime until I managed to get my hands on the real thing. I could never understand why, when we could go overseas for a family holiday, we could not afford the ‘new’ ABBA record. In hindsight, I now understand and appreciate my parent’s financial predicament at the time! When ‘ABBA - The Movie’ came out, I, was fascinated by the promotional posters advertising the film. It was ‘ABBA – The Album’ magnified to the ‘BIG SCREEN’! And, for those of us who were not fortunate enough to get to the local cinema, the monthly treat of going to the Drive-In on a particular Friday night just had to be going to see ‘ABBA – The Movie’ when it was playing locally, and that really was the ‘BIG SCREEN!’ It was almost surreal seeing ABBA on the big screen, they were so lifelike and so real and yet you felt so much a part of them more so seeing them at the Drive-In. Many times whilst I was growing up, the monthly outing to the Drive-In was more than often not cancelled due to the weather and a proverbial thunderstorm! I’m sure I must have kept my fingers very firmly crossed that it would not happen on that particular occasion. I can’t remember much of the evening, but my Mother recently recalled that there has only been one time in my life that she has ever seen me so in awe of anything other than when my daughter was born. I was also apparently very well behaved that night due to the fascination of these four wonderful people in the manner that they were captured in ‘ABBA - The Movie’. As I wrote in the paragraph above, I can’t remember much of the evening, or ‘The Movie’, other than wishing I was one of the kids screaming and singing along with the Australian audiences to all the songs I knew off by heart. The other thing I will never ever forget, and which made me feel so sad, is when ABBA climbed onto that Qantas Boeing 747 and flew away back to Sweden, back to their ‘haven’ to make more incredible music, which they did for many more years. It’s funny how you remember something as a kid. It was a while before I had the privilege of seeing ‘ABBA – The Movie’ again, and it was on our family holiday to Cape Town in 1980. It was still on Beta format in those days and it was a terrible copy, but hey, in between listening to my new ‘Super Trouper’ record, my other ABBA cassettes, original and pre-recorded, I spent the best part of my 1980 summer holiday, watching that videotape over and over again. I think I spent my entire holiday’s allocation of pocket money on hiring that videotape!!!! I just had to see ‘ABBA – The Movie’. No doubt the video storeowner was extremely happy that this tape was hired out so much in one month. As we entered into the 1980’s and the year’s passed by ABBA faded from obscurity for a few years, and just before the revival in the early ‘90’s, and once again visiting family in England, I found the video of ‘ABBA – The Movie’ in a record store, can’t remember which one it was, and I just had to have it. My Mother who was with me in England, once again, was horrified at the amount of money I was going to pay for a videotape of a film made in the mid to late seventies and by a group who had long since broken up. Our exchange rate against the pound was rather high, but what the heck, this was my money, I had earned it and I was going to have this film all to myself! Quite a dramatic change from a few years before when my parents could ill afford to purchase ‘ABBA – The Album’ on vinyl! And, buy it I did. On return to South Africa, I managed to get through Customs as clean as a flea, and could not wait to get home to my own space and watch the damn thing. Once again, I re-lived my childhood watching my favourite one time ‘Worldwide Stars’. That videotape that I spent so many pounds on stood me in good stead and was played many times over the years, and in fact it literally ‘died’ a week before I received the DVD. Talk about irony! I’ve decided to keep the tape for posterity purposes. The cover of the DVD far outranks that videotape, but despite that, that videotape gave me many happy years of seeing ‘ABBA – The Movie’. It literally was played right up to it’s sell by date. For me, ABBA were so happy ‘In Movie’. Bjorn and Agnetha appeared to be genuinely close and Benny and Frida, well, were just Benny and Frida, the happy go lucky couple in the quartet. To be honest, I still love them for what the four of them did in ‘ABBA – The Movie’. None of the four have ever professed to be actors, but they certainly pulled it off in ‘ABBA – The Movie’ whether they knew it or not. The storyline of the film has always been weak, but the four of them gave it a good run for it’s money, whether they were aware of it or not, and I have always felt proud that they managed to give Ashley a good run around up to the climax of where he finally got his interview in the elevator. The scene certainly gave ‘Eagle’ a new dimension for me. ‘ABBA – The Movie’ holds a special place with me, but one of my favourite scenes in the film is where Bjorn addresses the crowd after the group having performed ‘Tiger’. Who can forget, ‘Hello Sydney, very glad to see you, tell you one thing, you’ve made us forget the rain, just hope we can make you forget it too’ as the opening of ‘S.O.S.’ starts and Agnetha takes centre stage and delivers an awesome performance. To this day, this sentence or statement and that song still sends shivers down my spine. The recent DVD release has once again rekindled so many memories of 1977/1978 and especially were ABBA were concerned, so many have been brought back. I for one really appreciate the DVD. It has been a long 27 years in the making and I could not care if it has not set the DVD charts alight the world over. Why should it? It is a 27-year-old movie about a group who disbanded 23 years ago! I’m appreciating the recent DVD release for what is, a testimony to the wonderful career of four successful people halfway through their glorious career. Let’s face it, the 1979 tour did not re-capture the glory of the 1977 tour and Australia in particular, and as for the dead-pan 1981 Dick Cavett performances, let me not even go there. The hysteria from the public and the dedication from ABBA was not the same as what it was in 1977, which is understandable given the change in their personal lives. It must have been very difficult to give in 1979 what was given in 1977 when one couple was recently divorced and one recently married and the same applied to 1981 with two divorced couples in what was once a happy music group comprising of two happy couples. The bonus DVD is great. I have never before seen the adverts that were screened in the UK for ‘ABBA – The Album’ and for me that is treat. I really enjoyed the interview with Bjorn, Benny and Lasse Hallström, the Director of the film, and to be honest, I watched the second disc before I watched the first one, and when I did I somehow appreciated ‘ABBA – The Movie’ so much more than I ever have, simply out of watching the additional features first. When ‘ABBA – The Movie’ and ‘ABBA – The Album’ were first released I always loved the covers of both, I even recreated both in an art class using felt tip pens. For many years I pondered why ‘ABBA – The Live Album’ was not issued at the same time echoing the soundtrack of ‘ABBA – The Movie’ and to follow ‘ABBA – The Album’, and after re-reading Carl Magnus Palms’ epic ‘Bright Lights, Dark Shadows’ during this month, I fully understand why. Both ‘The Album’ and ‘The Movie’ ventures were trying for all four ABBA members at the time and as neither of them liked the ‘live’ album concept of their work; I’m not surprised it did not happen. The 1986 release of ‘ABBA Live’ was not exactly what sold records and maybe in 1977 this was felt by all four of them as well. The 2005 DVD release of ‘ABBA – The Movie’, has made me realise that ABBA stopped when they did in 1982 for a reason, it was enough, and even if they had tried to carry on or attempted a reunion later on in the eighties, and despite what successes they may have had prior to their eventual demise, they simply would never be able to re-capture what they had done in the past and what we as fans got to experience especially with their participation and production of ‘ABBA – The Movie’. The addition of this DVD release to my collection is merely an asset as far as I am concerned and one not to be missed for the most discerning of ABBA fandom. There may be many things a lot of fans would love to have had with this release, but let’s face it, we are not going to get them!!!! Long live ‘ABBA – The Movie’ in the format that we have finally got it, on DVD. Thanks for reading! Neil | 
