That'll Be the Day (film)

In an urban area in early 1940s England, a young child, Jim MacLaine, lives with his mother Mary and grandfather. His seaman father returns, spends time with him, and works in the family's grocery shop. However, he finds himself unable to settle down and soon leaves again for good, abandoning his wife and son, and Mary continues to run the shop and raise Jim on her own.

In the late 1950s. Jim is now a very bright but bored schoolboy in his final year at the local secondary school. His mother wants him to do well on his final exams, qualify for university, and have many opportunities—but Jim is far less enthusiastic about continuing his education, preferring to draw, write poetry, listen to rock n' roll, and chase girls—unsuccessfully. Instead of going with his friend Terry to take his exams, he runs away to the coast to work as a deckchair attendant, disappointing and upsetting his mother. He moves on to a barman job at a holiday camp, where he befriends the experienced barman Mike, who helps him hook up with willing women for his first sexual experiences. Jim is also drawn to the music and lifestyle of the resident singer, Stormy Tempest, and his drummer, J.D. Clover.

Mike and Jim next get jobs at a funfair, supplementing their meager pay by short-changing customers. Jim quickly becomes a heartless fairground Romeo, having one-nighters with a wide variety of women, including a young schoolgirl whom he rapes. He lies to Mike about the encounter, but Mike sees through it and berates him. Shortly afterwards, Mike short-changes a gang member and is attacked by the whole gang. Jim sees Mike being beaten, but instead of helping him, Jim hurries away, pretending he saw nothing, and has a tryst with another fair worker. The severely injured Mike is hospitalized, and Jim gets a promotion that was supposed to be Mike's.

Jim contacts Terry, who is now at university, but discovers that Terry and the girls there look down on his lifestyle and musical tastes. After two years gone, Jim decides to return home, finding his resentful mother struggling to run the grocery shop and care for her father, who is now an invalid. Jim helps his mother with the shop and starts dating Terry's sister Jeanette over the objections of her mother and Terry. Unlike all his previous dates, Jim does not have sex with Jeanette, even though she is willing to do so out of love for him. Jim and Jeanette marry, with Terry and her mother wrongly assuming she must be pregnant. Jim, angry at Terry and ambivalent about losing his freedom, has sex with Terry's girlfriend Jean the night before his wedding.

Jim and Jeanette live with his mother and grandfather. Jim pretends to be going to night school, but is secretly spending his nights at rock n' roll shows. Jeanette gets pregnant and they have a son. Jean and Terry plan to get engaged, and Jean makes suggestive remarks to Jim in front of Jeanette.

After talking with friends in a band, Jim leaves home, repeating his father's pattern. Jeanette cries, but his mum is unsurprised. The film ends as Jim buys a secondhand guitar.

The tie-in soundtrack to That'll Be the Day was released by Ronco and listed as a 'various artists' album rather than the official soundtrack. It spent seven weeks at the #1 position on the Official Albums Chart Top 50. However, beginning with the week ending 18 August 1973, all compilations listed as 'various artists' were removed from the chart, with only those billed as 'official soundtracks' (to films such as A Clockwork Orange and Cabaret) remaining,[8] causing That'll Be the Day to be excluded from the chart countdown.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

The film was a hit at the box office (by 1985 it had earned an estimated profit of £406,000).[1] Nat Cohen, who invested in the film, said it made more than 50% profit on top of its cost.[18] It was one of the most popular movies of 1973 at the British box office.[19]

Connolly said "At the time, I was astonished by its success. A sixth form drop out, who throws his school books into a river when he should be sitting his A-level history, writes poetry in the rain while hiring out deck chairs, and lets down just about absolutely everyone was hardly an obvious subject. But, on reflection, I can now see that there was nothing else like it at the time. And the music soundtrack was fantastic."[2]

The Los Angeles Times called it "a very special, strange and fascinating movie."[20]

According to Anne Billson in the Time Out Film Guide, the film was a "hugely overrated dip into the rock 'n' roll nostalgia bucket, ... " also commenting "Youth culture my eye: they're all at least a decade too old. But good tunes, and worth catching for Billy Fury's gold lamé act."[21]

At the 27th British Academy Film Awards in 1973, the film received two nominations. Rosemary Leach for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and David Essex for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.

Essex returned as Jim Maclaine the following year, in the 1974 sequel, Stardust, which continues the story into the early 1970s.

An independent radio drama recording project, That'll be the Stardust!, was released in 2008.[22] The story follows the musical journey of Jim Maclaine's son, Jimmy Maclaine Jr.

• Yule, Andrew (1989). Enigma : David Puttnam, the story so far ... Sphere Books.

• That'll Be the Day at IMDb
• That'll be the Stardust! Radio Drama