The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Who payed the critics

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Of course this isn't the real story of the Sex Pistols, but who cares? It's still a laugh... The opening credit's theme song (Steve on drums and Paul on guitar... Eh?) gave us the wonderful and future host of TV's Crystal Maze, Tenpole Tudor (even Sid is giggling, Tenpole's such a loony), before rocketing into a ridiculously wonderful "Malcolm McLaren as God kissing his own cheeks" slice of film.It's good fun, but if this is the only Pistols film you ever see, don't take what's said as what happened, this is purely McLaren's fantasy.Quite a bit of the live footage in this film turned up in the excellent "The Filth & The Fury", but here it uses the actual sound rather than simply overdubbing it with the album versions. Damn they were good when they were on form!Best bits? The Pistols (with John & Sid) rehearsing "No Feelings" in a studio without the unnecessary album overdub used in Filth & Fury (sounds even better here - see, Vicious can play bass, sort of...) Archive footage of people boycotting Pistols gigs in Wales:Interviewer: "Excuse me sir, can you tell me why you're here tonight?"Bloke: "Because I'm recognised as a Christian!" Bloke 2: "Ive got teenage daughters... I'd let them go and see Rod Stewart but I wouldn't let them see this rubbish!" Woman: "I think it's degrading and disgusting for our children to hear and see such things. If I thought one of mine was in there I'd go in and drag them out; terrible I think it is, just disgusting" etc. Hilarious!No more to be said, except a few points of pub trivia to bore your friends with: Lemmy from Motorhead taught Sid to play bass as he was about to join The Pistols over 3 days, before giving up (apparently he was unteachable). Chrisie Hynde from the Pretenders was supposed to marry Sid in order to stay in the country. During the always wrongly quoted Grundy interview, Johnny says "Oh alright, so you're playing games, I'm really impressed" and not that rubbish about "Oh alright, Siegfried" that is given in every transcript.Couple this with The Filth and The Fury for an entertaining evening's viewing before you dig out Never Mind The B*llocks, play it very loud and realise how good it still sounds...Tenpole should have joined The Cramps! Would have been comedy central!The Sex Pistols: an important point in musical history. You gotta love 'em!

I know that there are McLaren's side and Lydon's side and they hate each other. And Lydonists also hate this movie. For me they are both nasty and egocentric guys with their bad and good ideas. Whatever. I don't care about the ideology of the movie. But the movie is surprisingly good and interesting. I have seen several rock films and this is one of bests. Documentary, fiction, feature parts and animations are cut together in very entertaining way and I don't see any problem in directing and acting. Surprisingly professional movie. And maybe without "Swindle..." we wouldn't have so much footages of Sex Pistols and the whole 70's punk scene.

This movie is crucial for any fan of punk. With all of it's flaws, this movie is an amazing glimpse into what went on. This is the story of the Sex Pistols told by Malcolm McLaren. Does he have an agenda in this film? Yes. Is he completely honest? No. Is Johnny Rotten untalented? No. The proof is in the movie. There are auditions for a new singer after Johnny left that prove how good he was, because the singers aren't nearly as good. The band was merely a shadow of its former self without him. Rotten was a true original. This is the band that launched a thousand bands. Watch this movie along with The Filth and the Fury. Instead of choosing which is better, learn from both movies about what went on. Malcolm tells a story in this movie, but the clips of the band performing are priceless. In the Filth and the Fury, Johnny gets to tell his side. Watch them together and judge for yourself.

During the Sex Pistols heyday, their manager Malcolm McLaren had an idea to market the band as a noveaux Beatles. From 19776-1980, McLaren spent the band's money trying get the film off the ground. He went through several directors and writers until he finally settled on Julien Temple (a young film-maker). Temple and McLaren himself shot hours and hours of footage, sketches and concert footage. After working on this project for almost four years and with nothing resembling anything like a coherent movie, Temple decided to make a collage out of the footage and re-shot and edited the useful film segments and made a surprisingly entertaining film (considering the tight budget and time restraints). By the time the movie was released, Sid Vicious was dead, John Lydon was in Public Image Limited and Paul Cook and Steve Jones were in a new wave band called the Professionals. Neither of them were even speaking to their former manager. So, at the last minute, Temple decided to make the movie about the rise and fall of the Sex Pistols.As for the band members, John Lydon didn't want to have anything to do with McLaren's project. Sid Vicious went along because of the money he was promised, ditto for Cook and Jones. The three former band members participated in the film without Lydon. Most of the music for the soundtrack was composed by Paul Cook and Steve Jones, Sid Vicious sang vocals on a few tracks but the music was played by Cook and Jones. Watch for Nancy Spurgen, she makes cameos in several of Sid Vicious sketches. Several scenes from the movie that showed up on the double album soundtrack do not appear in the final cut of the film. Maybe one day they'll release a director's cut of the movie. Yes, that is the Great Train Robbery participant Ronnie Biggs playing himself in the movie. He even sings on a couple of tracks and he's not that bad of a lead vocalist. Recommended for fans of British punk and of the Sex Pistols.