That'll Be The Day (1973)

Interesting facts

That'll Be the Day is a 1973 British coming of age drama film directed by Claude Whatham, written by Ray Connolly, and starring David Essex, Rosemary Leach and Ringo Starr. Set primarily in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it tells the story of Jim MacLaine (Essex), a British teenager raised by his single mother (Leach). Jim rejects society's conventions and pursues a hedonistic and sexually loose lifestyle, harming others and damaging his close relationships. The cast also features several prominent musicians who lived through the era portrayed, including Starr, Billy Fury, Keith Moon and John Hawken.

Production

David Puttnam and his producing partner Sandy Lieberson met with Nat Cohen of EMI Films, who agreed to provide half the budget. The other half, £100,000, was obtained from Ronco Records on the condition that the film include 40 songs from Ronco's catalogue of old hits, which they could then sell on TV as a soundtrack album. According to Filmink, the film:

Wasn't an obvious slam dunk – Puttnam had some credits, but they included only a mild success (Melody) and a disaster (The Pied Piper), the story was downbeat, and the lead was not a big name at the time (David Essex). But Cohen could recognise Puttnam's talent, not to mention the opportunities for a killer soundtrack – always a factor at a company like EMI – and the fact that the script had sex in it, thus it might be another A Kind of Loving or…

According to screenwriter Ray Connolly, the film was the brainchild of Puttnam, who had worked in advertising and recently moved into film production. Connolly says Puttnam was inspired by Harry Nilsson's song "1941", in which an early-1940s father deserts his young son, who subsequently joins a circus; Puttnam suggested changing the circus to a fair.

Puttnam hired Connolly, a journalist friend, to write the script. Connolly worked on it in the evenings, and said they would "ransack our own lives as we created the fictional character of Jim Maclaine, and steal moments from our favourite films, a bit from East of Eden here, something from Francois Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows' there."

Puttnam offered the directing job to Michael Apted, who turned it down. Director Claude Whatham was given the job when Puttnam was impressed with the period detail of his TV movie Cider with Rosie. He also liked the fact that Whatham was not that interested in rock'n'roll, and thought Whatham would provide an objective counterbalance to Puttnam and Connolly.

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