Paul McCartney vs Peter Sissons: when The Beatle defended his flop of a film
Give My Regards to Broad Street was not the height of Paul McCartney’s career. In fact, for a man so synonymous with critical and commercial success, Broad Street could very well be McCartney’s pop culture nadir. Although critics savaged his first solo albums in the early 1970s and would later give middling reviews to albums like Press to Play and Driving Rain, Give My Regards to Broad Street help a special place for McCartney haters.
A feature film that had McCartney credited as a screenwriter for the first and only time, Give My Regards to Broad Street attempted to replicate the wacky adventures that McCartney had gotten up to in films like A Hard Day’s Night and Help! Only this time, McCartney was an older man trying to sell an inane plot that he himself had conceived. The soundtrack gave him a number-one album and a top-ten single with ‘No More Lonely Nights’, but the film itself received scathing reviews.
The judgments were quick to come in. While being interviewed at the film’s UK premiere party, McCartney sat down with Channel 4 anchor Peter Sissons to discuss the film. Almost as if he was purposefully attempting to get the better of him, Sissons preceded the interview with a four-minute segment that focused on how poorly the film was being received. Immediately after the segment, Sissons interviewed McCartney live, with the former Beatles attempting to remain professional while defending his new film.
McCartney starts the interview by attempting to correct some of the points in the preceding segment that he took umbrage with. “A lot of what you said was wrong,” McCartney claimed. “It’s taken [in] over $1.4million; it’s in the top 20 of the American films; the reviews have been about 50 per cent good and 50 per cent bad, all of which you showed, I noticed. What about equal time, Peter?”
Sissons attempted to get McCartney to explain what critics had missed in their reviews but acknowledged some of the faults of the film. “I think making a film like this, with music and plot, trying to mix the two, is actually a very difficult genre,” McCartney said, “And I think people don’t realise how difficult it is to do that. And the people that like it weren’t expecting too much, so that the kind of slight plot that it has – my fault because I wrote it – it really kind of doesn’t get in the way of the music.”
McCartney joked that he would “physically force” people to go see the film again and claimed that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band originally had terrible reviews. When Sissons attempted to get McCartney to retaliate against the critics who lambasted the film, McCartney demurred, claiming that some of his best friends were critics. It’s a canny move from McCartney as someone who has had to deal with critics and writers all of his professional life.
The interview is a fascinating view into McCartney’s attitude when the chips are down: Sissons consistently tries to get a hot line or damning remark out of McCartney, but the former Beatle stands firm. Although time would not be kind to Give My Regards to Broad Street, McCartney maintained his cool while being inundated with poor reviews.
Check out the interview down below.
