slade in flame (1975)

Slade play a fictional band called Flame. We meet the band members as they struggle to make it in the working men’s clubs of the midlands in separate bands. Once they meet and become Flame, everything starts to happen for them, fame, money, woman. But they soon learn that what goes around comes around and there are many people making claims on their talents. What usually happens when bands decide to do a film is that you get a bit of fluff, made to make as much out of the gullible fans for as cheaply as possible, but what the record company got in this case was a gritty look at the price of fame, marked all the way through with a desperate depressing air of the inevitability of failure. This is definitely the darker side of rock and roll, but all the better for it. An interesting film that plays with themes of gritty northern England, gangsters and band in-fighting. Not your average fluff piece by any means.