Enter any record store in the country and you can find half a dozen copies of Give My Regards to Broad Street. It would be better to use these printings as dinner plates than listen to the Paul McCartney movie tie-in soundtrack. What is pitched as a day in the life of The Beatles’ McCartney is, in fact, a self-deprecating slaughterhouse. His flame-adorned hot rod and missing master tape are played off as business as usual. McCartney’s image as a tongue-in-cheek charmer is the beating heart of Give My Regards to Broad Street. He is the very reason a film like this can work, from the high-speed pursuits to the Monty Python-like situations which appear throughout this Peter Webb-directed feature. One of the few films to paint the record industry as a set of insufferable suits yet still hold some sympathy for head office.
Crucial to the success of Give My Regards to Broad Street, irrespective of its quality script or directing choices, is the acting of the star. McCartney makes the transition from studio to screen well. He feels like a natural, and that may be because he is playing himself. Bryan Brown as Steve is excellent supporting stock for this role, a cool head and trusted ally for McCartney’s portrayal of himself to bounce off. He’s there to add detail to the plot, it is hard to see him as anything else. But it works, as does the inclusion of Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, and Linda McCartney. Macca may seem flat, but the mundane nature the film sets out to recreate, the career-ending theft of master tapes, is all taken in stride. It brings about a sense of constant fear, a wild choice given the straight-shooting start of the film. But soon those world-building moments, be it a performance of Yesterday or a flash of dream-like sequences, suggest McCartney is trying to catch a break in moments of constant tension.
We all do that. We all try and find the light at the end of a stressful day, and like McCartney, must learn to take it in stride. Give My Regards to Broad Street is far more than a comic caper starring two members of The Beatles – though those moments have a charm of their own. What Give My Regards to Broad Street shows is calm and order prevails every time. McCartney may look unmoved by the loss of this fictional master tape, but it is the disconnect from meetings and suits, the desire just to create and continue as a musician, which is carried by this performance. That soft tinge of Python-esque slapstick, from Starr searching for his drumsticks to a disguised McCartney busking, is what offers a soft comedic foundation. Build from that, though, and there is an amicable attempt at showcasing how McCartney deals with daily stresses.
He is undeterred even in the face of grief, of hopelessness. It is what makes him a magnificent musician, someone to look up to. Give My Regards to Broad Street is silly, no doubt about it, but what it does show is an attempt from McCartney to assess the impact of events out of his control. Fame changes perception. McCartney, reeling from the loss of John Lennon, adapts the mundane into moments which appear to affect him far deeper than first realised. An encounter with an autograph hunter, for instance, shows the hollow necessity of public appearances. Keeping that positivity up, in the face of those who do not care or actively dislike the person they are speaking to, is strong commentary from Webb and the rest of the crew. Give My Regards to Broad Street works with or without a love of McCartney, it stands as a refreshing, summery comment on the treatment of artists not as people, but as assets to be shipped like parcels from one stage to another.
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