By Jake Coyle

Associated Press

The teenage revolution was
in full force on the fall 1964
night that Kit Lambert and
Chris Stamp stumbled into the
Railway Tavern, a London pub
where a band called the High
Numbers was playing and
mods were gyrating. It was
London’s Swinging ‘60s, with
its subculture explosion and
stylish youths.

Such is the scene, glimpsed
in footage shot that night, at
the beginning of the riotously
entertaining new documentary
“Lambert & Stamp.” Lambert
and Stamp were assistant film
directors, frustrated by not
ascending to the director’s
chair, but full of wild ideas.
They wanted to find a band to
make a film about, but their
plans had wider cultural aspi-
rations: “a mad (expletive)
concoction of stuff,” says
Stamp in the film.

The frenetic energy and
loud rhythm and blues riffs of
the High Numbers hit like a
thunderclap, even if they
lacked in looks. (Later, some
would worry that they were
too ugly to make it big.) When
Lambert and Stamp became
their managers, they urged
them to take an earlier, aban-
doned name: The Who.

The infatuation was mutual.
Lambert and Stamp had zero
knowledge of the music busi-
ness, but they were a captivat-
ing duo. Lambert, the son of a
famous conductor and an Ox-
ford grad, was posh, erudite
and gay at a time when homo-
sexuality was illegal 1n Britain
Stamp, the brother of the actor
Terence Stamp, was a dashing
East End Cockney, the son of a
tug boat captain. Neither
cared a lick for convention.

“I loved them immediately,”
says Pete Townshend, the gui-
tarist and songwriter of The
Who, in the film. “They
changed my life forever.”

Lambert and Stamp would
mold The Who (among other
things they encouraged the
songwriting of Townshend)
into one of the great rock ‘n’
roll hands. And it all started

with an idea that, as Town-
shend says in the documen-
tary, was intended to “blow
itself up” in a year or two.

“Lambert & Stamp,” the
directorial debut of James D.
Cooper, a veteran cinematog-
rapher, is an intimate rock
documentary that eludes most
of the standard beats of the
genre. By focusing on the
managers — the band’s so-
called fifth and sixth mem-
bers, “the shell of the egg” as
singer Roger Daltrey says —
the movie takes a wider view,
capturing the composite na-
ture of creative invention and
cultural change.

It’s almost all depicted in
the film in black and white:
gritty in period footage, classy

in contemporary interviews.
Stamp died in 2012, but was
interviewed extensively be-
fore passing away. Lambert,
though, died in 1981. His pres-
ence (the more magnetic and
fascinating of the two) hovers
over the film from older foot-
age.

“Lambert & Stamp” hums
frantically in the first half
with the spirit of teen rebellion
that propelled both The Who
and its unconventional orches-
trators. (Daltrey, Townshend
says in a way that could only
be cutting, was the only “con-
ventional” figure of the
bunch.) But the film, perhaps
inevitably, subsides in the
second half, as the familiar
fallout of fame — drugs, death,

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‘Lambert & Stamp’ tells the backstage story of The Who

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disputes over a film of the
rock opera “Tommy” —
wrecks the relationships.

“Anyway, anyhow, any-
where I choose,” was the an-
them The Who sang, and their
managers (who signed J imi
Hendrix to a record deal be-
fore actually having a record
label) were perfect repre-
sentatives of the song.

Their genius was in realiz-
ing the sea change that was
happening. “You don’t market
TO them. You market THEM,”
Townshend says of the new
audience relationship. Speak-
ing to a skeptical news pro-
gram, in French no less, Lam-
bert predicts that the ‘60s Mod
scene was no mere fad, but a
youth movement that would

THE IMAGE WORKS/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
The Who business manager Chris Stamp, left, and Kit Lambert, manager (producer on the band's album, "Tommy") appear in a scene from the
documentary "Lambert & Stamp."

'LAMBERT & STAMP'

Rated: R for language, some drug
content and brief nudity.
Star rating: **

regenerate with every genera-
tion. Indeed, the Who got old-
er; the kids stayed the same
age.

“Lambert & Stamp,” a Sony
Pictures Classics release, is
rated R by the Motion Picture
Association of America for
“language, some drug content
and brief nudity.” Running
time: 117 minutes. Three stars
out of four.

Follow AP Film Writer J ake
Coyle on TWitter at: http://
twitter.com/jakecoyleAP