In Review

'Tommy': terrific, dazzling

By Bernard Drew

Gannett Movie Critic

"Tommy", which opens today at the Panorama, is rated PG.

Ken Russell's film version of The Who's rock opera "Tommy," is terrific, fantastic, dazzling, overwhelmingly the best of the rock operas, and glittering cinema as well. For once, Russell's brilliant, daring but erratic talents are matched with the right property. I cannot think of another director doing a better job with the material. Russell's brashness has often given his previous films a swift kick where it was needed without particularly advancing the theme, but here it is germane to the entire concept. Pete Townshend of The Who originally wrote it, with additional material by colleagues John Entwistle and Keith Moon, the fourth member, Roger Daltrey, stars as Tommy.

Tommy (Barry Winch) is 6 as the film opens in 1951. His father was killed in the war, and his grieving mother Ann-Margret has finally met a man she loves again, a seedy social director at a holiday camp, Oliver Reed. They marry.

But the first husband, Tommy's father, is not dead as believed, merely badly wounded, and one night he returns home to find his wife in bed with Reed. In the ensuing excitement, Reed kills him and it is witnessed by the child.

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