A searchlight cut through the starless urban skies of Dallas, pointing the way to a neighborhood shopping center rife with upper-middle-class china shops and exquisitely posh fabric and fur-coat establishments.

Settled comfortably into the shopping center’s plush middle, protected by acres of parking spaces and topped by a mid-1950s neon sign, was the Inwood Theater, a haven for Saturday afternoon children’s shows.

But the children have grown up since the Inwood was built. Now, we are rock and rollers.

Last week, the suburban Dallas theater saw a little action.

“Just as it was reaching the point of exasperation, the boredom broke and Russell’s far-out images took over to begin turning his film around.”

That searchlight was pointing to a huge, firmly packed crowd of bluejeaned, pea-coated people, waiting patiently for the arrival of a limousine as cold and as black-and-silver brittle as the starless night.

The movie causing such searchlit excitement was Ken Russell’s version of the rock opera, “Tommy.”

It was being carefully sneak previewed, with all the proper hoopla, but in Texas, safe from the hard glare of East and West Coast exposure. This showing was its first public unveiling.

Ann-Margret, one of “Tommy’s” stars, was about to arrive in that black limousine. She would enter the Inwood to watch the film for the first time.

The bright, black limousine, lights flashing off of its shiny surface, swung quickly into the parking lot.

The crowd squeezed forward. Ann-Margret popped out of the glittering auto into a protective flying wedge of guards and police.

Lights flashed, bulbs popped, there was surging movement between car and theater door. Anyone under 6’ 5” tall could see no star at all.

It was a classic Hollywood entrance to a splendid movie premiere.

Ann-Margret and party arrived in the theater, a little cloud of excitement following her all the way. She and her group settled into seats reserved for them in the theater’s center.

The movie began. It opened with English wartime scenes, with Ann-Margret in a factory job, ammunition and ball bearings falling all over the floor.

The music was “Tommy” but not quite familiar. It was new music by The Who’s Peter Townshend, composed especially for the film. It moved slowly as the opening scenes unfolded before us in lush and spectacular Ken Russell style.

The point of the opening scenes was to build up a reason for Tommy’s blindness, deafness and dumbness. The story of his early life began to emerge. Oedipal details taking over the action.

While the rationale for Tommy’s state proceeded slowly foward on the screen, the theater’s sound system was behaving oddly, causing much jumping up and down among the movie personnel. It seems the wrong print was being used — a Quintaphonic print on a quadrophonic system or vice versa.

It was therefore impossible for the press or the premiere patrons to make any true determination of “Tommy’s” total effect.

Sound is important in a rock film, which depends on rich and nearly overwhelming music to carry its point. Especially in what is reputed to be the most glorious extended form composition in popular music.

In many theaters, including Austin’s Fox Twin where the film opens April 18, “Tommy” will come across in Quintaphonic sound.

Quintaphonic, say the studio executives, is a revolutionary system whereby the vocal solos (all the dialogue is sung in “Tommy,”) emit from the screen and the music surrounds the audience from four sides.

The music, as sound system problems were being worked out, was grinding on slowly, perfectly matched to the plot exposition. Both were, at this point, padded, forced and overextended.

A-M, sitting dead center in the theater, scrunched down in a seat nearly buried by a high-collared coat, stared straight ahead at the screen, eyes glittering in the dark as her screen image was reflected in her face. A tiny hand would frequently come up to her mouth, as if she were about to bite her nails. But a well-groomed star does not do that kind of thing, and Ann-Margret refrained from such nervous indulgences.

She is disciplined, both onstage and off. “That person up there? She’s a stranger to me. Always has been,” she would say the next day in an interview. And this star’s approach to her screen self bore out that remark. Throughout a thoroughly self-revealing film, two hours in length, her approach to that stranger was consistently businesslike and analytical.

The film plowed on through the explanatory material on Tommy’s affliction. Just as it was all-reaching the point of exasperation, the boredom broke and Russell’s far-out images took over to begin turning his film around, making it into the rock opera of the milestone album by The Who, with visual amplification to match the all-encompassing music.

A bright white ball, an image inside Tommy’s mind, appeared on the screen. Crosses and airplanes joined the...