Privilege

1967
1h 43m

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.3K

YOUR RATING

Steven Shorter is the ultimate British music star. His music is listened to by everyone from pre-teens to grandparents. His handlers begin to use his popularity for projects.

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Satire Comedy Drama Music Sci-Fi

Britain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Sho... Read allBritain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government,... Read allBritain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government, promoting whatever agenda they see fit. When a beautiful artist, Vanessa Ritchie (Jean Sh... Read all

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.3K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Trivia
Paul Jones was an atheist at the time of making this film which is set in a fictional UK controlled by a Christian dictatorship. Ironically Jones became a born again Christian in the mid 1980s.

Quotes
Rev. Jeremy Tate: This black card will be issued to you as you leave the Stadium tonight. On it there are three words.They are simple words but they are vital words. They are words which we must now, all of us, begin using because, since the end of the War, we in Britain have become apathetic, slack, loose in our morality. National cohesion has become unimportant to us! We must fight this. We must. Now, all of us begin to use the words on the card! "We will conform."

Connections
Featured in Guide to the Flipside of British Cinema (2010)

Soundtracks
Free Me
(uncredited)
Written by Mike Leander and Mark London

User reviews40

Review

Featured review

Remember it as brilliant, want to see it again!

The count stands at at least 2 people!!! I DID see this film (25+?) years ago on UK TV, when I was quite young. I occasionally remember it and am now trying to track down a copy. I agree with all the previous reviewer's comments, the only element he doesn't mention is the "Stalinist" undertone in respect of the relationship of the power and the privilige. The young pop star receives "Privilege" in return for exercising power (unknowing manipulation) over the masses for his unseen (but knowing) masters. The finale of the film is an Orwellian vision where he has fallen from grace, his career is over, but since record of him cannot be erased so easily his publicised image is restricted to visual only, his voice is erased...

I guess the film was originally created as a "pop" metaphor of Communist regimes, but my memory of it resonates with much of modern media, and public, pop-hysteria.

Oh, I remember the music as good too, but I'm bracing myself for a shock if I hear it again... (I remember a time when Alice Cooper sounded heavy and shocking. Nowadays it feels very "middle of the road"!) Paul Jones still rocks, running his show on BBC Radio 2 on Blues (at time of writing).