In an odd series of events High Times magazine took an interest in punk rock and the Sex Pistols in particular and featured Johnny Rotten on the cover of their October 1977 issue. An association with Punk magazine led High Times publisher Tom Forcade to hire filmmaker Lech Kowalski to follow the Pistols on their ill-fated US tour and thanks to them we have some priceless footage of those legendary performances. With friction between Pistols manager Malcom McClaren and Pistols US label Warner Brothers, the filmmakers were denied access to the band and the shows and used clever tactics to get in and shoot crucial footage.
The film itself fails as a document of the Pistols tour. There was simply not enough footage shot and with no access to the subjects it was just concert footage and post-show interviews with fans and foes. So Kowalski took his sparse crew and headed for England to shoot more footage and flesh out the film. The coup of landing a post-breakup interview with bassist Sid Vicious turned to a farce when Sid was too smacked out to function. They then followed the adventures of what they believe is a typical Brit punk named Terry Sylvester of the band Terry and The Idiots. The band is abysmal and Terry has no real charisma and it drags the film to a halt. Things pick up with footage of X-Ray Spex, Generation X and Sham 69. Rod Swenson of Plasmatics fame provides some clips of Dead Boys and there is some footage of Pearl Harbor and some especially juicy footage of Weirdos but these clips are shown with Iggy Pop’s Nightclubbing playing on the soundtrack.
D.O.A. is an essential film for its stunning clips of the Pistols live in the US and its shortcomings can be forgiven due to the chaotic circumstances under which it was shot. This is confirmed in the feature length documentary that is included in this excellent package by MVD. Gathering crew members and Punk Magazine’s John Holmstrom along with other key players in the events, the documentary is a brilliant companion to the film and explains decisions in the films execution that may not have made sense before. It makes the herculean efforts by the producers and especially the crew members clear and honestly, making this film truly was the rite of passage.
