Performance (1970) on Netflix
Chas, an East London gangster, collects pay-offs for Harry Flowers through violence. Needing to hide, he talks his way into a Notting Hill flat shared by Turner, Pherber and Lucy.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.7/1012,357 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chas works for the East London gangster Harry Flowers, collecting pay-offs through intimidation and violence, a job he enjoys. When Flowers moves to take over Joey Maddocks's betting shop, he orders Chas to stay out of it, since the two men have a history. Chas ignores him, humiliates Maddocks, and after Maddocks wrecks his apartment and attacks him, shoots him and flees with a suitcase. Flowers has no intention of protecting him, so Chas looks for a place to hide. He overhears a musician mention a rented room in Notting Hill Gate, goes there, says the man sent him, and tells Pherber he is a performer, the juggler Johnny Dean. She lives with Turner, a rock star in seclusion whose demon has left him, and with Lucy.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Performance (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Performance was first written for Marlon Brando to play gangster Chas in a version where an American mobster hid out in London; when James Fox took the role instead, he spent months living among South London criminals to prepare.
- During filming, Keith Richards feared that his partner Anita Pallenberg had real sex with his Rolling Stones bandmate Mick Jagger on camera, a rumor later confirmed by crew member Ian Stewart, and Richards reportedly sat outside the set in his car.
- Performance so alarmed Warner Bros. that the wife of one studio executive reportedly vomited during a test screening, and studio head Ken Hyman ultimately shelved the film, deciding no amount of re-editing could make it make sense.
- The Rolling Stones were originally supposed to write Performance's soundtrack, but tangled personal and professional tensions among the band meant that plan fell through entirely.
- Performance included apparently real, unsimulated sex and drug use on screen; while underground filmmakers like Andy Warhol had shown such behavior before, it was unprecedented for it to appear in a mainstream studio production.
- Performance's influence outlived its rocky release: the Big Audio Dynamite song "E=MC²" built extensive samples of the film's dialogue directly into its track.
