Mad Dogs & Englishmen [2005 DVD]

Joe Cocker

Overview

This movie is about Joe Cocker's 1970 U.S. tour which began in Detroit and ended in San Bernardino California. The bulk of the film is concert footage with studies of backstage life, life on the road, and a brief interview with a hard-core groupie. Joe Cocker is also a featured performer in the movie of the concert Woodstock, which came out at about the same time as this movie. His hoarse singing style, especially in rock ballads, closely resembles that of Rod Stewart, but his curious spastic gestures and un-selfconscious earnestness as a performer are uniquely his own.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/18/2005
UPC:	0602498860243
Original Release:	2005
Source:	A&M
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:58:00
Sales rank:	22,970

Special Features

5.1 surround sound; Personal playlist; Pressbook

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Joe Cocker	Actor
Joe Cocker	Primary Artist
Pierre Adidge	Director

Technical Credits

Pierre Adidge	Director,Producer
Pierre Adidge	Producer
Robert Abel	Producer,Producer
Donna Washburn	Performer
Sid Levin	Director
Nickey Barclay	Performer
Matthew Moore	Composer,Performer
Donna Weiss	Performer
Keith Richards	Composer
Carl Radle	Performer
David Myers	Photography Director
John Sebastian	Composer
Leon Russell	Composer,Performer
Lloyd Price	Composer
Jim Keltner	Performer
Mick Jagger	Composer
Adam Starr	Product Manager
Claudia Lennear	Performer
Dave Mason	Composer
Jim McCrary	Photography
Bobby Lee Jones	Performer
Jerry Moss	Executive Producer
Cosmina Andee Cohen	Photography
Chris Holden	Engineer,Remastering
Harry Marks	Producer
Dan Moore	Performer
Monique McGuffin	Production Coordination
Pamela Polland	Performer
Paul McCartney	Composer
Leonard Cohen	Composer
Bobby Keys	Performer
Bonnie Bramlett	Composer
Chris Stainton	Composer,Performer
Joe Cocker	Composer
Wayne Carson	Composer
Rita Coolidge	Performer
George Harrison	Composer
John Lennon	Composer

Editorial Reviews

Mad Dogs and Englishmen is strange to see today -- on so many levels that it's like a really off-kilter music/sociological education. For starters, in terms of its origins, it is probably the granddaddy of all A&M films. It's difficult to imagine, apart from some Herb Alpert promotional clips, what the company would have produced before this visually, much less anything that could stand on its own as a feature. As a movie, it pulses with energy from the opening frames, which depict an anxious crowd of would-be attendees frozen out of the sold-out show at the Fillmore East in New York, and one gets a tactile sense of what it was like around the Fillmore on a night when a really good act was there. Then there's the backstage stuff with Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, et al., and various groupies and hangers-on, but in less than eight minutes that seem like two, we're at the show. Between the performance sequences, we get shots of the band members doping, drinking, womanizing, and generally doing what rock stars did in those days. One unintentionally ironic moment has the band rehearsing Leon Russell's song "Superstar," which was to earn millions for A&M in a decidedly different version by the Carpenters. That's just before the band and its entourage -- dozens in all -- arrive in Plattsburg, NY, for a show at a local college. One moment in the Texas swing of the tour has become unintentionally funny across the decades, when a veteran groupie explains herself and her motivations and cites Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues as an authority who told her that, without the groupies, tours would be truly wretched experiences. Amid all of the cross cutting, there are some great musical moments: Cocker's performances of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "The Letter," and Claudia Lennear's rendition of "Let It Be" (which are the highlights of the movie's first hour). There's also an ugly moment in the second hour when a lunatic begins verbally accosting the band members for their lifestyle before being ejected by the management. The whole viewing experience is rather bracing, even more so decades later, when touring and music have become much more managed and predictable.