Baked beans and Elton John on stilts: Tommy’ at 50

Mark Beaumont delves into the behind-the-scenes drama that plagued the making of Ken Russell’s cult classic

- Mark Beaumont

A 20ft tall Elton John topples from gigantic Dr Marten boots, defeated at the flippers by the brand new pinball wizard. Roger Daltrey, in crucifixion garb, grins and shivers as a silver sci-fi iron maiden closes around him, its spikes the needles of bloodinfusion syringes. Eric Clapton delivers a blues sermon from the pulpit of the Church of St Marilyn Monroe. And Ann-Margret, playing the rich but guilt-stricken and alcoholic matriarch of the piece, writhes erotically around a plush bedroom suite in the torrents of detergent foam, chocolate sauce and baked beans gushing from her broken TV set.

From messianic hang-gliding scenes to riots in spiritual holiday camps, the striking imagery of Ken Russell’s screen adaptation of The Who’s rock opera Tommy, which hit cinemas 50 years ago this week, is burnt deep into the memory of rock’n’roll filmmaking.

In bringing the story of Tommy, the titular deaf, dumb, and blind pinball hero, to the big screen, Russell drew together the surrealist set-piece threads of music-based films of the psychedelic era – from Help! and Ma cal Mystery Tour through to The Monkees’ Head and Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels. Equally, he embraced the eye-grabbing, fantastical nature of 1970s album cover art, and by doing so crafted the then-definitive rock film experience – albeit one that would face plentiful criticism over the coming decades for its paper-thin characters and dodgy singing. As well as some wonderfully sly malevolence, Oliver Reed brought the vocal range of an undercooked pancake to his role as Tommy’s murderous stepfather, possibly an early influence on a young Ian Brown.

“It was a visual thing [Russell] was interested in,” Just Good Friends star Paul Nicholas tells