The Song Remains the Same

The Song Remains the Same. 1976 Warner Bros. Pictures.
Featuring: Led Zeppelin, Peter Grant, Richard Cole
Directors: Peter Clifton and Joe Massot
Two disc special edition available from Amazon.

Re-released in 2007 to DVD with all fifteen live performances included, and containing a newly remixed and remastered soundtrack (among other goodies), Led Zeppelin's live concert slash fantasy film is still an exciting two hours and seventeen minutes, even if the members of the band have admitted that this performance was an "off night" for them. The live performances were filmed at Madison Square Garden on July 27th through the 29th in 1973, with further footage filmed at Shepperton Studios in August of 1974, after director Peter Clifton noticed there were gaps in the concert footage already completed. This caused a minor continuity problem, as John Paul Jones had cut his hair short in the period between filming (he simply wore a wig at Shepperton), and Robert Plant had undergone dental surgery since the MSG performance. Also included in the film is Zeppelin manager Peter Grant chewing out a concert promoter while using two of the seven words you can never say on television quite often. Warner Bros. agreed only to release the movie if this scene's dialogue was censored.

The fantasy sequences are interesting, but one can suppose that they probably could have been left out of the film in favor of more live concert scenes. Grant and Richard Cole (Led Zeppelin's tour manager) play two armed hitmen attacking a business meeting filled with "greedy millionaires". After a scene where he reads Jack and the Beanstalk to his children, and receives a message requesting his presence in America, John Paul Jones stars in a reinterpretation of Doctor Syn, where he plays a masked gentleman named The Scarecrow, who travels at night on horseback with three others before returning home to his life as an ordinary family man. Robert Plant is a sword-wielding knight who rescues a maiden while on a quest for the Holy Grail. Jimmy Page climbs a mountain on a night with a full moon to seek out the Hermit in a quest for self enlightenment. However, when he reaches the top, Page discovers that somehow, the Hermit is him! John Bonham's fantasy sequence is quite ordinary: he simply spends time at home with his family, plays a game of snooker, and goes drag racing.

Recommended movie capturing Led Zeppelin at the peak of their popularity, and a good example of the excesses of the music and show business industries during the time. But, if you want a superior Zeppelin concert DVD, by all means pick up 2003's Led Zeppelin DVD, which contains more footage from the 1973 MSG concert that wasn't used in the movie.