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London,
Nick Curtis's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Nick Moran.
Cast: Con O'Neill, Kevin Spacey, Pam Ferris, Ralf Little, James Corden, Sid Mitchell, Tom Burke, JJ Feild
Description: Biopic documenting the rise and fall of pioneering, gay British songwriter and record producer Joe Meek who stormed to the top of the charts on both side of the Atlantic in 1962 with the titular track. With the help of songwriting partner Geoff Goddard, Joe guarantees a steady stream of work for his house band, The Tornados. Then blond singer Heinz Burt catches Joe's roving eye, the two become lovers and the producer grooms Heinz for solo stardom. However, the threat of financial ruin and Joe's carefree lifestyle, at a time when homosexuality is illegal, nudge him to the brink of self-destruction.
Country: UK. 2008. 119mins
Dumb blond: JJ Feild as the Tornados’ dim lead singer Heinz Burt, love of Joe Meek’s life
It’s taken years for actor Nick Moran to bring this biopic of gay Sixties record producer Joe Meek to the screen but it was worth the wait.
Meek was a sonic pioneer who couldn’t play a note, with a loopy belief in spiritualism and the business sense of a plank.
He created the titular hit Telstar but passed on The Beatles, wasted his heart and savings on a dim-bulb singer called Heinz, and killed himself after shooting his landlady in 1967.
This intriguing tale is told with energy, style and wit by Moran, if not quite enough depth.
Con O’Neill played Meek in Moran’s earlier stage version of the story, and renders him again here as a manic obsessive whose perfectionism tips too often into apoplectic rage. It’s a grandstanding performance, even if further clues to Meek’s personality are relegated to a couple of sentimental late soliloquies and flashbacks.
Moran is clearly an actors’ director, drawing fine supporting performances from the likes of James Corden, Ralf Little and Tom Burke, and a hilariously inappropriate cameo from Kevin Spacey as Meek’s stiff-upper-lipped business partner.
He’s also still a lad: there’s only one, sitcom-ish female character, and she gets shot.
Yet the script is very funny and well paced until, like Meek, it falls apart at the end.
Moran also captures a real sense of the period. Not just the clothes and the wallpaper in bedroom recording studios, but the clash between the new world of music and Dexedrine and the old order, founded on cups of tea and respect, that criminalised Meek’s sexuality.
It’s not the best debut by a writer/director I’ve ever seen but shows there’s much more to Moran than his Lock, Stock past.
Telstar screens tomorrow at the Genesis Cinema, Whitechapel. The London Film Festival runs until Thursday.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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A fantastic film with Con O'Neill giving an award winning performance as Joe Meek. Please please go and see this film, you will not be disappointed!!!
- Annette Moore, Wirral, UK
Like a lot of people, I will be seeing Telstar when it comes out later this week. This is a fascinating story which has been a long time coming. However, please spare a thought for Violet Shenton and her family, after all -- Joe Meek was a murderer.
- Richard Elsner, Somewhere in England
That "dim-bulb singer" Heinz was one of the best singer that Joe worked with, as well as being the bass player on Joe's biggest hit, Telstar. You should listen to some of Heinz' records before you run your mouth about him. Those recordings are still amazing. Heinz was a really good singer, his band was amazing, and Richie Blackmore's solos were years ahead of their time. Heinz' records were also some of Joe's most commercially successful productions. Heinz and the Wild Boys ROCK!!
- Billy Zoom, Orange, CA, USA
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