Charlie Is My Darling

The 1 hour show was put together in January 1966 by the Stones' manager Andrew Oldham from a combination of concert footage taken during the tour of Ireland in autumn 1965 and backstage interviews, during which Brian Jones discusses his fear of marriage, Charlie Watts his limitations as a musician and Mick Jagger impersonates Elvis!

Great to finally see this almost legendary "fly on the wall" documentary on the Stones, before the booze, drugs and other excesses kicked in. Caught in mid '65 somewhere between "Satisfaction" and "Get Off Of My Cloud", we see at first hand the mayhem which often beset their gigs at the time with stage invasions seemingly the norm, interestingly with apparently more guys than girls as the main offenders.

Off-stage, the band are relaxed and irreverent with no signs of the tensions which would befall them later. All are well-spoken, Jagger, unsurprisingly, given the most to say, which he does perceptively and intelligently, Brian Jones discusses the transience of fame, Bill Wyman deprecates his own musicianship, Keith, as you'd expect, is seriously into the music, while the darling of the title would simply rather be at home with his wife.

There's interesting footage of Jagger, Richard and manager at the time Andrew Loog-Oldham goofing around a piano, spoofing the Beatles and Presley and other backstage glimpses as well as the obligatory fan interviews with young and old, some for and some against the band. On the whole the band we see here is well-behaved and orderly with none of the crazy over-the-top madness which later overtook them, indeed at one point Oldham and Jagger even irreverently gate-crash a young couple's wedding.

The music scenes are excellent, even with the frenzied screaming of the fans, the band sound great with Jagger in top, elastic form.

Even though it often looks like a vintage home-movie, this short film is a lively curio, with none of the pretensions of say Bob Dylan's "Don't Look Back" from a year or so later.

I viewed a bootleg copy of "Charlie Is My Darling" forty five years after it was originally filmed. As much as Brian Epstein was the fifth Beatle, Andrew Loog Oldham was the sixth Stone. Andrew Loog, in 1965 liner notes heralded this music as "New groovies...abound to the sound of the Rolling Stones." Whereas fifth Beatle Brian Epstein was, brilliant/erudite/invisible, sixth Stone Andrew was a pure jabberwocky genius. "Charlie Is My Darling" is the anti-Christing of "Hard Day's Night." Pardon my excessive numeralizing, but, in 1966, Andrew Loog prominently featured First Stone Brian Jones when he/Charlie/Bill/Keith/Mick –collectively the Rolling Stones–were mere Rolling Pebbles. For any Stone fan who was their from that infancy...This rockumentary is a must see!

Stands alongside Pennebaker's 'Don't Look Back' as pioneering 60's verite rockumentary. By turns funny, touching, exciting & revealing. Whitehead manages to create an astonishing level of intimacy with the world's premier rock band which would be unthinkable these days. Even the taciturn Charlie Watts is coaxed out of his shell and shares his feelings and philosophy (for perhaps the only time on film). Brian Jones's narcissism is palpable; A topless Keef displays his early mastery of the guitar jamming on 'Salty Dog'. The scenes of fan craziness in the pressure cooker fame game of the early 60's are viewed ironically from a distance like 'A Hard Day's Night' directed by Godard. The film also works now as a sort of social history of Ireland in the evocative detail of a vanished era. The occasional melancholy tone is one of the idiosyncratic touches that sets the film apart from any other pop doc. before or since.

A personal highlight is the hilarious scene where Watts tries to take a cigarette from Wyman but is repeatedly outwitted by some painfully simple sleight of hand.

As an unreconstructed Stones fan this film is a favourite slice of pop history. Andrew Loog Oldham as the Stones manager at the time was desperate to get the band on film after seeing the impact of the Beatles Movies. He was introduced to Pete Whitehead who had made a film called Wholly Communion which recorded Alan Ginsberg, Alexander Trochi and other giants of the poetry world performing to a packed Royal Albert Hall and in the process giving birth to what became the underground art movement of the 60's.

The original cut featured more of Brian Jones and in a move that may have started his marginalisation within the group Oldham had his footage trimmed and some footage from a London gig that showed the band being mobbed on stage inserted. This footage also featured in Whiteheads "Tonight lets make love in London". Oldham also inserted some music from the "Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra" doing some Stones tracks.

The rights to the film and its soundtrack became confused when the band became managed by Alan Klein and was completely unavailable for some years. A version released on video in the UK had all of the original music replaced by soundalikes.

My favourite scene is a drunken Mick Jagger doing an Elvis impersonation and a surreal moment when he poses for some snaps with an unidentified family. Also funny but sad is the moment Brian Jones is lost for words when Whitehead asks him to define the word "surealism".