Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13491 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-28
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Special Features
16:9 Wide Screen
DVD 5
English
Region 0
Dolby Digital Stereo English
Dolby Digital Stereo
Dutch\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Spanish

Synopsis
The definitive story behind one of the classic albums from the British punk era. See surviving band members talk about how it all came together, along with classic tracks like "God Save the Queen" and "Anarchy in the UK."

Customer Reviews

A "must-have" for ageing punk rockers
There aren't that many decent documentaries about punk rock albums (or actually many punk rock albums worth making a documentary about) so this one stands out. Music fans will always argue over which is the "Greatest" album of all time, but few can deny that Never Mind the B*ll*cks turned Rock and Roll on it's head, and changed the industry for ever.

The history of the Pistols, and the politics behind them ending up with Virgin Records are as much the theme of this documentary as the content of the album. On the face of it you might think that would detract from the point of the film, but actually it provides the background to many of the tracks and puts them into some perspective. There are some live shots with the studio recordings overdubbed, which were surprisingly well done and not as tacky as you might imagine. The band members come across well, and provide plenty of anecdotes to satisfy any Pistols fan. Better still, McLaren comes across as a complete idiot, and the band take plenty of pot-shots at him throughout the film. Nice one Malcom!

The producer and engineer talk about the band in a very positive way, and put paid to any suggestion that they couldn't play. Apart from Sid, that is. He was hardly discussed, which was explained away because his contribution to the album was negligible, if it existed at all.

The bonus material includes some good live footage - New York was for some reason not mentioned in the main feature, but a great live performance in Stockholm was included here instead. A short discussion of Sid (nearly making up for his absence in the main feature), a few more anecdotes, together with some "technical" discussions about the Anarchy bass riff, Steve Jones's guitar playing, and the recording/engineering is also included.

The film is summed up by everyone agreeing that the album was a turning point for Rock music. At the end, a rather poignant comment by Steve Jones, about what might have been, helps put the Pistols in the same category ("If only.....") as all those other great bands that met a premature end.

A insight into the beginnings of The Sex Pistols
I always read the reviews on Amazon as they are normally a good guide..on this occasion though I had already seen the 50 minute version on the BBC series 'Classic Albums' and knew it was good but it's better than that..the extra's alone are worth the purchase price..'Play the Steve Jones Way in a Day' is just brilliant..it proves the stories about session musicians playing everything on 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is just that B*ll*cks..The interviews with all the band members reveals a muted mutual respect for each other. Malcolm Maclaren is shown to be a bit of a Walter Mitty character..none of the band has a good word to say about their Mis-manager. The insight into the recording sessions is very interesting..it rips away the image of 4 lads not bothered about anything, and instead reveals how much hard work they all put into the album..the songwriting, the recording, re-recording and the techniques used by the producers to get the undoubted energy and aggression onto tape.
If you buy 1 Sex Pistols DVD, make it this one...and to the idiots who wrote the reviews with 1 Star..you must be under 35yrs old..the impact this band had in 1976-77 didn't just shake up the music business..it shook the WHOLE COUNTRY..how is Kermit.??