Director: Robert Frank
Year Released: 1972
Rating: 2.0
Long-suppressed 'documentary' about the Rolling Stones that has some instances of misbehavior, but little naughtiness by the Stones themselves, who are mostly seen playing cards, playing with movie cameras or finding new ways to dress like gypsies. The association between the hangers-on (with their unshaved groupie sex and heroin use) and the band reflects poorly on the Stones - which is probably why they fought to keep it from being widely-released - but it also reveals that being a rock star isn't all destruction and chaos (it's a lot of time in impersonal hotel rooms and flying around). It's inferior to 1970's Gimme Shelter - which holds the Stones accountable for the Altamont disaster and places the group in a much larger context as representing the end of the 60's Peace Movement - and acts, more or less, as a randomly assembled home movie (Frank, a brilliant and influential still photographer, can't keep this camera still or in-focus, going hog wild with the entire verite idea).
