Quadrophenia

= Quadrophenia (film) =

Story
The film, set in 1964, follows the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels), a London Mod (one of a group fashion-obsessed working class youths who listen to black American soul music, take amphetamines and ride Vespa and Lambretta Scooters). The Mods' arch-enemies are the Rockers, who in turn wear black leather and ride motorcycles. Disillusioned by his parents and a dead-end job as a post room boy in an advertising firm, Jimmy finds an outlet for his teenage angst with his Mod pals Dave (Mark Wingett), Chalky (Philip Davis) and Spider (Gary Shail). However, his angst and confusion are compounded by the fact that one of his Rocker rivals is in fact childhood friend Kevin (Ray Winstone), to whom he comments, "I don't wanna be like everybody else – that's why I'm a Mod, see?"

A bank holiday weekend provides the excuse for the rivalry between the two gangs to come to a head, as they both descend upon the seaside town of Brighton. A series of running battles ensues, based on the real-life "Second Battle of Hastings" riot of 1964. As the police close in on the rioters, Jimmy escapes down an alleyway with Steph (Leslie Ash), a girl on whom he has a crush, down this alley they slip into a back garden to have sex. When the pair emerge, Jimmy is arrested and later fined £75.

Back in London, Jimmy becomes increasingly depressed and unstable as his life begins to fall apart. He is thrown out of his house by his mother, who finds his stash of blues (blue amphetamine pills). He then quits his job, blows his severance package on blues, and finds out that Steph has become the girlfriend of his mate Dave. After a fight with Dave, Jimmy crashes his scooter, and, high on pills, takes a train to a now tranquil Brighton in an attempt to recapture the elation he felt during the holiday weekend. He revisits the scene of his encounter with Steph, and then discovers that his idol, the suave Mod "poster boy" Ace Face (played by Sting), is in reality a lowly bellboyat a Brighton hotel. He steals Ace's scooter and heads out to the cliffs at Beachy Head, where he rides towards the cliff edge. The film ends with the scooter smashing on the rocks below, but Jimmy's fate is not explicitly shown. However, since the film opens with a shot of Jimmy walking back from the cliff edge, he presumably jumped clear at the last second. (Note also that when the final shots of falling scooter are played in slow motion, in one shot Jimmy is visible, standing at the top of the cliff.)

An interesting and well known continuity error in the film is that in the final scenes with Jimmy riding Ace's scooter along the cliffs, some scenes show the scooter to have a fly screen and other show it without. The shadow of the filming helicopter can also be seen.

Response
The film was received mostly negatively by critics and was panned for its large amounts of sex, violence, profanity and drug use, which at the time were fairly uncommon in film. It did acquire a large word-of-mouth reputation amongst teenagers too young to go and see it. Today it is considered a cult classic and is recognised as a realistic reflection of youth culture in the 1960s. Many have praised Phil Daniels' intense performance. The film currently holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It was a major influence on the mod revial in music and fashion which provided a launching pad for the careers of bands such as Secret Affair, The Chords and The Lanbrettas while boosting the popularity of The Jam, previously perceived as a punk act. Sting's appearance in it also benefited his band The Police despite the fact that their music was not noticeably compatible with traditional Mod tastes.