Modern Unrest

Forty-five years after its release, a chaotic, funny and unusually unvarnished film about Madness is returning to audiences in a new restoration.

In the early 1980s, when British pop stars went to the cinema, the expected result was a carefully managed showcase. Madness chose something different. Take It or Leave It, the 1981 film about the Camden group’s beginnings, put the band’s arguments, false starts and working-class friendships at the centre of the story. It was a decidedly unglamorous way to celebrate success.

Now the British Film Institute has restored the film in 4K and returned it to cinemas across the UK and Ireland. Directed by Stiff Records co-founder Dave Robinson, it is also due on a BFI Blu-ray/DVD edition later in October, followed by a BFI Player release in December.

Before the band became an institution

The film looks back to seven friends forming a band in 1970s Camden Town, following the jobs they abandoned, the personnel changes and the gradual invention of the group’s unmistakable blend of ska, pop and street-corner humour. Madness play themselves in this loosely structured recreation, filmed largely in locations connected to the band’s early history.

Some locations have since disappeared. The BFI notes appearances by Rock On Records and Pathway Studios, while scenes around the Dublin Castle pub carry particular weight: this was one of the places where a young group could persuade a landlord to let them play. Seen today, the streets and interiors form a record of a London that has been substantially remade.

The project was financed partly by the band and made without the polished machinery of a conventional musical biopic. Robinson drew on the musicians’ recollections, improvisation and the rough-edged social realism of British cinema. In a new BFI interview, both Robinson and singer Graham “Suggs” McPherson discuss the influence of films including Kes and Mean Streets.

A second chance for a difficult-to-classify film

Take It or Leave It did not become a box-office phenomenon when it appeared in 1981. It sat awkwardly between documentary, dramatization and promotional film, with little interest in turning its protagonists into untouchable stars. But that awkwardness is arguably part of its appeal: the music matters, yet so do the ordinary rooms and disagreements that produced it.

Among the songs heard in the film are “One Step Beyond,” “Night Boat to Cairo,” “My Girl,” “Baggy Trousers” and “Embarrassment.” Those familiar recordings sit inside something more specific than a greatest-hits package: a portrait of a band and the neighbourhood that made it possible.

The restoration was made from surviving 35mm film elements, with the original Dolby stereo mix retained. It follows the BFI’s previous revival of Dance Craze and Slade in Flame, another pair of British music films whose significance extends well beyond their soundtracks.

Where to find it: BFI screening and release information. Background reporting: BFI restoration announcement and interview with Dave Robinson and Suggs.

Featured photograph: LivePict.com / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Madness performing in 2008; not an image from the 1981 film. Image may be cropped for the page layout.