The Commitments (1991)
Directed by Alan Parker, Screenplay by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais & Roddy Doyle,
Based on The Novel "The Commitments" by Roddy Doyle, Produced by Roger Randall-Cutler & Lynda Myles, Cinematography by Gale Tattersall, Edited by Gerry Hambling.
Starring Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne,
Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle, Dave Finnegan, Bronagh Gallagher, Félim Gormley, Glen Hansard, Dick Massey, Johnny Murphy,
Kenneth McCluskey & Andrew Strong.
Jimmy Rabbitte, a self-proclaimed promoter, decides to organise an R&B group to fill the musical void in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland. The band comes together but ends up consisting entirely of white musicians who have little experience with the genre. Even though their raw talent and lofty aspirations gain the group notoriety, the pitfalls of fame began to tear at their newfound friendships as they prepare for their big show.
Author Roddy Doyle
Following the publication of Roddy Doyle's novel The Commitments in 1988, producers Lynda Myles and Roger Randall-Cutler acquired the film rights, and asked Doyle to write an adaptation.
Doyle was not a screenwriter and spent 12 months adapting his book into a screenplay. The producers Myles and Randall-Cutler felt it needed improvement so they passed the novel and draft script to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais asking their opinion on the project and wondering if
they could suggest a screenwriter but after reading the book Clement and La Frenais agreed to help write the script themselves.
Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais have had a long and massively successful career embracing films, television and theatre. Their partnership began in the mid-1960s creating the hit sitcom "The Likely Lads", Clement also directed the BBC sketch show "Not Only... But Also", which starred Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. In the early 1970's Clement and La Frenais wrote a british crime film "Villain" which starred Richard Burton & Ian McShane
(Which is great and worth a watch) they then created the award-winning series "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?", followed by one of the best if not the best British sitcoms of all time "Porridge" they also created the massively successful comedy drama series "Lovejoy" that starred Ian McShane & Dudley Sutton and they created the show "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" which was a television phenomenon.
In 1989 producers Myles & Randall-Cutler took "The Commitments" to Beacon Pictures, a brand new independent film company established that year by former television journalist turned screenwriter and producer Armyan Bernstein who was excited to get involved.
Clement and La Frenais flew out to Los Angeles to discuss the project with Alan Parker, show him the screenplay and give him a copy of Roddy Doyle's novel.
When Parker read the novel he was intrigued by its dialogue and humour, stating,
"The book was all dialogue with very little description, but by the use of this wonderful language, and almost nothing but language, in a few lines Doyle was able to make his characters as vivid and strong as a dozen pages of purple Joycian prose."
Parker was keen to be involved in the project but he paused signing on until he had completed his project "Come See the Paradise" (1990)
To secure Parker's involvement the producers and Beacon Pictures agreed for Parker to have full creative control of the project. Once Parker had signed on Beacon Picture secured the initial funding for the film and 20th Century Fox acquired the North American distribution rights.
The films casting directors John & Ros Hubbard travelled to Dublin in April 1990 and spent two months visiting clubs and venues searching for actual musicians to appear in the film.
In June 1990 Parker travelled to Dublin and placed an advertisement in the magazine "Hot Press" requesting young artists to audition for roles in the film. Ideally Parker wanted to find actors who could play a musical instrument and looked like the characters from the book.
He said, "I would stop kids busking on the streets and call them in to audition ... we had to choose kids who were quite talented, because they had to play musicians who were awful at first, but gradually improved."
Auditions were first held at The Waterfront, a nightclub located next to the River Liffey in Dublin.
Parker then held an open casting call at the Mansion House on Dawson Street, Dublin, where 1,500 people auditioned for various roles. During these auditions, Parker met Andrew Strong the son of the film's vocal coach Rob Strong, who performed "Mustang Sally".
After meeting with Parker to discuss the project, Strong secured the role of Deco Cuffe, the lead singer of The Commitments.
Robert Arkins was initially considered for the role of Deco but he was ultimately cast as manager Jimmy Rabbitte who does not sing in the film but Robert Arkins actually performs the song "Treat Her Right" during the opening credits of the film.
Parker wanted to cast a recognisable veteran Irish musician in the role of Joey "the Lips" Fagan, who is the oldest and sage-like member of the band. Parker initially approached vocalist Van Morrison as you can imagine this did not go well due to Morrison being a cantankerous weirdo. They also pursed Irish guitar legend Rory Gallagher but film and stage actor Johnny Murphy secured the role.
Even though Murphy was not a musician and could not play the trumpet Parker felt that he captured the essence of both the character and the film.
Murphy was the only cast member who did not do his own playing or singing in the film.
The band's three backup singers known as "The Commitmentettes" were made up of
established actor Bronagh Gallagher cast as Bernie McGloughlin, Gallagher was from Derry in Northern Ireland and she had to learn a Dublin accent for the role.
Maria Doyle Kennedy was cast as singer Natalie Murphy she was discovered by the casting directors being a member of
The Black Velvet Band.
Actor Angeline Ball secured the role of Imelda Quirke after a private audition with the casting directors.
Robert Arkins, Dave Finnegan & Glen Hansard.
Michael Aherne, who plays The Commitments' pianist Steven Clifford, was an employee of the Dublin Corporation (a civil servant) he took a three-month leave of absence from his role in the government to make the film.
Left to Right, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy & Bronagh Gallagher (baby unknown)
Glen Hansard, the lead singer of the band The Frames, was cast as Outspan Foster, the band's guitarist.
Dave Finnegan had a meeting with Parker which began normally and very civil but Parker began to verbally poke at Finnegan to purposely wind him up so the exchange became more and more heated until it erupted becoming verbally abusive from both parties threatening each other with disturbing acts of violence.
Parker cast Finnegan on the spot as Mickah Wallace, The short-tempered bouncer who becomes a drummer for the band. Parker explained that he simply wanted to test the limits of Finnegan's aggression, as he wanted the truculence of the character to be convincing.
Amusingly! in the movie the skateboarder kid who asks if he can audition for the band was at the time of filming a championship skater and a local celebrity but he was also well known because years before he was featured on the U2 album covers "Boy" (1980) and "War" (1983)
I would like to add that this effort getting actual musicians who can act / actors who can actually play is a really good approach. I am a movie fan with a bit of a music background and nothing takes me out of a film like an awful attempt at miming playing an instrument.
Once everyone was cast and pre-production was complete Parker then spent five weeks rehearsing with the cast I imagine this was not only musical but also acting classes with the musicians. Principal photography started on the 27th of August 1990.
The novel was set in Barrytown which is a fictional town inspired by Kilbarrack where Doyle worked as a teacher. Parker made the decision to set the film in Dublin and the film was shot on a total of 44 locations across the city.
Gale Tattersall the film's cinematographer wanted a "a gritty, ugly look" that would become more composed and polished as the band became more successful.
Principal photography wrapped in October 1990 after 53 days of filming.
G. Marq Roswell
The film The Commitments does not have an original film score the film is scored with existing R&B tracks.
Music supervisor G. Marq Roswell was drafted in to listen to listen to and categorise hundreds of R&B songs over many months during the projects pre-production period eventually travelling to Dublin to work with Parker to sift through the "short list" of 1,000 possible songs and finalise the songs that would be used in the film.
From May to June 1990 the pair whittled the 1000 songs down to about 300 then Parker narrowed it down to 75 songs. The completed film features 68 different musical cues and 52 songs. 24 songs were chosen by the director to be performed by the cast. Roswell also organised and supervised the recording of the cast. The songs were recorded live on set to capture the reality of the band's rehearsals and performances but were recorded onto a 24- track recorder so the performances could be mixed and errors could be corrected afterwards.
The film premiered at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California on the 6th of August 1991 and most importantly
The Savoy Cinema in Dublin, Ireland on the 19th of September 1991.
The film was made for $15m ($35m in 2024)
It grossed,
$14.9m at the North American Box Office
($34.4m in 2024)
$3.5m at the Irish Box Office ($8m in 2024)
$10.5m in the UK ($24.2m in 2024)
The film was nominated for one Oscar "Best Film Editing" but did not win losing to the film "JFK".
It was also nominated for one Golden Globe Award
"Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy"
but lost to "Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast".
At the 45th British Academy Film Awards it was nominated for six awards and took home four, "Best Film", "Best Direction", "Best Adapted Screenplay" & "Best Editing"
It is safe to say the film did not perform well in North America and is sadly thought of as a financial disappointment.
I believe its problem in America during its theatrical release is down to the subject matter of young people from a hardscrabble life trying to "make it" would have appealed to a young adult audience but middle america going and sitting through what they would have perceived as a "foreign" or "European" film that many would of required subtitles to understand the heavily accented performances mixed with the fondness the advertising people had for using Black & White photography to promote the film many Americans probably thought it was a Black & White European film... but! who knows... it kinda passed a lot of Americans by, even though reviews were generally positive.
The film was a massive hit in the UK and it became the highest-grossing film at the Irish box office of all time on its release. It's Irish gross adjusted for inflation and converted to Euros is €7.2m which I think would still make it in the top 20 highest grossing films at the Irish Box Office to this day.
The film ended up being very profitable in the long run, The Commitments was released on VHS on 9 April 1992 and was very successful in the home video market in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The movie's soundtrack was a huge hit when it was released in August 1991 on MCA Records.
It spent 76 weeks on the American Billboard 200 chart where it peaked at number 8 .
In the UK it was in the top 40 album chart for 51 weeks and peaked at number 4.
The album was a success in New Zealand going to number 1 in the Album Chart.
It also appeared to be a phenomenon in Australia not only reached number one on the Australian Album Chart but it went on to be certified 5× platinum meaning they must have sold 350,000 copies in Australia... I think that is 1 in every 50 Australians bought this album.
over 12 million copies were sold worldwide. Due to popular demand there was a second album released "The Commitments, Vol. 2: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" (1992) which was also quite successful but did gangbusters down under!
In January 2000, it was announced that Miramax had acquired the film rights to The Commitments novel and they commissioned playwright Warren Leight to write a sequel to The Commitments film. The premise involved several members of original band reforming and recruiting new band members before going on tour in the United States.
Thankfully that never got off the ground.
But what did get off the ground was a stage production. Inspired by Doyle's novel a 2013 musical stage production was written and staged. The 2013 show was directed by British theatre director Jamie Lloyd.
Doyle had previously turned down all offers to adapt his novel into a stage production but with the rise in popularity of the "Jukebox Musical" not doing it is just leaving money on the table.
The Commitments began previews on 21 September 2013 in London's West End at the Palace Theatre. Its official opening night was on 8 October 2013. The show went on to have had more than 1,000 performances before officially closing in London on 1 November 2015.
A United Kingdom and Ireland tour went on to 2017 and again in 2022/23. The Musical obviously had nothing to do with Alan Parker but does show the continuing popularity of the story.
A brand new release of "The Commitments" on Blu-Ray comes out in the UK on the 2nd of September 2024.
Sadly we don't have a 4K release but this new Blu-Ray does come with 2 hours of Special Features.
You can pre-order this Blu-Ray now on the HMV website.
The film is NOT available to stream or rent or buy online via a streaming service.
(End Of Part Four)
