Quadrophenia (1979) on Netflix
Mid-1960s London: Jimmy Cooper works a dead-end post-room job and fights with his parents. With his mod friends Dave, Chalky and Spider, he rides scooters, takes pills and brawls with rockers.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/1022,830 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jimmy Cooper is a young London mod with a post-room job he hates and parents he cannot get along with. He comes alive at parties and all-nighters, taking Dexamyl and riding with his friends Dave, Chalky and Spider, and brawling with rockers. A bank holiday weekend draws both groups to the seaside town of Brighton, where Jimmy wants to be noticed as a face. He is drawn to Steph, who plans to ride down instead with Pete, an older mod with money. To stock up for the trip, the friends buy pills from London gangster Harry North, are cheated with fakes, and after vandalizing his car burgle a pharmacy for Dexamyl.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Quadrophenia (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Lydon, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, screen-tested for the role of Jimmy Cooper, but the distributors of the film refused to insure him for the role and he was replaced by Phil Daniels.
- Trevor Laird (Ferdy) was scripted to appear in a party scene with a white girl but was excluded by associate producer John Peverall over concerns it could cause problems with distributors in South Africa and the southern United States; Toyah Willcox has said cast members discussed going on strike.
- The film was almost canceled when Keith Moon, the drummer for the Who, died, but in the words of Roddam, the producers Roy Baird and Bill Curbishley "held it together" and the film was made.
SPOILER
Beachy Head, where Jimmy considers suicide at the film's ending, is 14 miles from Saltdean, the site of the real-life cliffside death of a young mod in 1964 that Roddam has said inspired Townshend's original concept, though Townshend has denied this.- Jeff Dexter, a club dancer and disc jockey fixture in the 1960s London music scene, was the DJ in the club scenes and the uncredited choreographer of 500 extras for the ballroom and club scenes; he also choreographed Sting's feet in his dance close-ups.
- The album was dedicated to Peter Meaden, a prominent mod and first manager of the Who, who had died a year before the album's release.
