The Grateful Dead Movie (1977) on Netflix
NR19772h 12mDocumentaryMusic
In October 1974 the Grateful Dead play a five-night farewell run at Winterland in San Francisco before a hiatus. Cameras follow the band on stage and the Deadheads in the crowd.
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- IMDb8.0/101,108 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
By 1974 the Grateful Dead were planning a break from touring, and a five-night farewell run was booked for October 16 through 20 at Winterland in San Francisco, with the last date billed as The Last One. The shows were filmed so that the movie could tour in place of the band during the break. Six cameras shot the concerts and two 16-track machines recorded the audio, which came through the Wall of Sound, the system the band used through 1974. A second drummer joins for the final night, and a guest keyboardist sits in at points during the run. The film gives unusual room to the Deadheads in the crowd, adds interviews with band members and older footage, and opens with an animated Uncle Sam skeleton.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Grateful Dead Movie (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The opening animated sequence cost about as much as the entire rest of The Grateful Dead Movie, and the combined costs brought the Grateful Dead organization to the brink of bankruptcy, threatening the band's own record label and requiring more debt.
- Jerry Garcia worked on the editing, assembly and synchronization of The Grateful Dead Movie for nearly three years, calling it "two years of incredible doubt, crisis after crisis," and those who knew him said he was consumed by finishing the project and highly stressed.
- At the beginning of the second set of the final filmed show on October 20, 1974, Mickey Hart joined the Grateful Dead on stage as a second drummer after being out of the band since February 1971, and the appearance led to his permanent return in 1976.
- Leon Gast brought television's concept of multiple cameras for complete coverage to the shoot, and The Grateful Dead Movie was one of the first movies to try to interface SMPTE timecode, a video technology, with film.
- Phil Lesh and band sound man Owsley Stanley listened through the concert tapes to compile a soundtrack album, but because both the movie and the band's record label needed funding it was rushed out as Steal Your Face to go with the band's return to touring; it shares only two songs with the film.
- Rather than make dozens of prints and distribute the film through normal outlets, the movie was toured city-to-city to control quality; Phil Lesh said Jerry Garcia had a concert promoter rent theaters, a process called four-walling, and bring in special sound systems to improve the sound.
- The Dead's five-show farewell run was set for October 16-20, 1974 at Winterland in San Francisco, and the shows were filmed so the movie could be sent out on tour as a substitute for the band; The Band would film their own farewell concert at the same venue two years later.
