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Ian Cole remembers ABBA - The Movie 25 years on.....
Yes, it's another entry in the long-running series "25 years ago today". And it's based around another significant anniversary that passed just last month that we've forgotten to mention so far. January 6th was the 25th anniversary of the first time that I saw 'ABBA - The Movie' at the Centre Cinema (which was also its first cinema screening in Canberra). The opening session that day was as I recall 2pm. There had been a one-off screening at the Sundown Drive-In on New Year's Eve, but plead as I might, my parents wouldn't take us (the excuse they used was that it was going to rain). Though as Graeme will tell you (he was visiting Canberra that week and did go to the drive in), the screening was a disaster with no sound during the concert sequences. The print was damaged and the screening had to be abandoned.. Most of my circle of friends at the time met up at the cinema incredibly early - The Movie was the first session of the day at the cinema, and I think we must have got there just as the cinema opened. When other people started arriving, we made our way to the door to the cinema - making sure that we were right at the front. In the group of friends I had at the time, a few of them were ABBA nuts like me, but I think we got a few of the non-ABBA types there as well. As soon as the doors to the cinema opened, we rushed in, but the ushers were only allowing people to sit in the last 6 rows. Once those rows were pretty much filled up, they started letting people sit closer to the front, one row at a time. The first and I think only time I ever encountered anything like that. The cinema ended up pretty full. There were a few shorts before The Movie started. One I remember was about horse shows and that sort of thing, and featured Princess Anne. I can't remember what other shorts there were now. Bum :-( And then The Movie started. There was an air of excitement in the cinema as it started - I think people even applauded. I loved the opening - at least once it got passed the interminable opening scene with Ashley and the radio station manager. I remember thinking how fabulous the concert footage looked - and how much more we could have seen if not for the crappy storyline. Dunno why Lasse Hallstrom felt that concert films were "boring" - at around the same time, The Band's concert film The Last Waltz was released to rave reviews. But then again, that had a cast of dozens of well known rock identities, not "four plastic people from Sweden singing plastic pop songs" (I paraphrase a typical review of ABBA here). I remember being shocked at Get On The Carousel - where the fuck did that song come from? I didn't remember it at all from the concert 10 months earlier (it's true! my notes from 3/3/77 do not have it listed - nor I Wonder, which shows how well the mini-musical registered at the time). Eagle was stupendous - it was the first time hearing the new songs (aside from The Name Of The Game, which had been out for a couple of months). I also remember being incredibly jealous of every single fan who had an up close and personal ABBA moment. And pissed off that they didn't show *me* - *I* was at the concert, after all!!! ;-) As I remember, everyone clapped and cheered at the end. Sad to think that just a short while later, these same people probably would have denied even *listening* to ABBA, let alone being a fan or seeing The Movie. ABBA - The Album was released around Australia the following Monday (we had to wait until the end of that week for it to arrive in Canberra). So I could enjoy those new songs and more in the comfort of my own bedroom. I was for some reason really excited to find that the introduction of Hole In Your Soul was the music from the opening credits to The Movie - I had feared that this punchy piece of music would not appear on record and I'd never hear it again. I saw The Movie again a week or so after the first screening, and then for a third time, in its final week in Canberra (which was I think the last week of January). I'd won a competition on a local radio station - the prize was a double pass to The Movie, The Movie poster, The Movie badge, and the 1977 tour gold plated medallion. I gave the medallion away because I already had one - the cinema showing The Movie was selling them. The third screening was pretty empty - maybe 10 people in the cinema. And the sound was pretty crappy - one channel then the other would cut out whenever there was stereo effects going on (e.g. the musicologist talking on the left side, music or whatever playing on the right). And then I thought I'd never see it again. When The Movie was shown on Australian TV in 1979, it wasn't shown in Canberra :-( We only had a couple of TV stations at that time. So I thought the whole thing would be lost to me forever. Who knew that there'd be such a thing as home video and then the DVD format? And who knew that there'd be an ABBA revival and it would play in cinemas and on TV again? Who knew that 25 years later we could enjoy it again and again and again? Though now we can fast forward through all the Ashley bits, and watch a much better movie ;-) Ian Cole, Sydney, Australia |
