Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35371 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-07-13
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 75 minutes

Synopsis
As seen in Richard Curtis's 2009 film THE BOAT THAT ROCKED, Sixties Britain was a hotbed of pirate radio stations. This candid documentary takes you inside.

Customer Reviews

This is really the Radio England Story
Interesting DVD with quite a few mistakes - Radio One was on air in 1963? Radio Luxembourg played classical music? .... and there's loads of gaps for commercials. Perhaps this was meant for screening on commercial TV? If you're not an offshore radio anorak you could find yourself drifting off during the course of this film. Unfortunately, no mention is made of the fact that ship based radio off the English coast lasted until 1989 and the horrific raid on Radio Caroline. Radio England was never really a success in the 1960's. It should have arrived in about 1983 when the UK was ready for this type of format - as proved by Laser 558.

No wonder buyers are confused
This documentary was originally titled 'Swinging Radio England - a Tale of Pirates, Texans and Teenagers, and it concerns

"Pirate Radio in England in 1966, and more specifically, Radio London and Radio England and the americanization of rock music in Great Britain. Shot on location in London and Texas, this program is fun, hip, and exciting while presenting the musical climate of the 60s and the history of this great rebellion in a way that will inform even the most knowledgeable of music historians."

Re-titling it 'Radio Pirates' would lead buyers to believe that it's about UK pirate radio in general. It is not.

A great story botched up
I saw the Curtis movie called "The Boat That Rocked" in the UK when it was first released and that movie made a good story for adults into a boring and silly drama for pre-teens. Now Curtis has pushed back his USA release date to November and sent the original film to the chopping block to be condensed under the new title of "Pirate Radio", so it does not take too much imagination to see why this work commissioned for TV in HD has now been retitled "Radio Pirates".

Unfortunately this would-be TV project is similar to the Curtis failed movie project and for many of the same reasons. Curtis began to make a sensible movie and the original opening in CNN format reflects that. His conclusion is similar. But what was stuffed into the middle is something more suited to Howard Stern's fantasy than anything to do with offshore commercial radio off England in 1966. The producer of this DVD, which was to have been a TV show, decided to cut out key elements of the story material for reasons we can only guess at. So the hero, Don Pierson of Eastland does not appear in a movie or voice track - even though a recorded interview with him about this entire story does exist. Neither is there any credit bestowed upon Ben Toney (except by passing reference), even though Ben Toney was personally responsible for creating much of the real drama on behalf of Don Pierson. The same goes for Gordon McLendon, the pioneer of top 40 radio as English listeners came to know it. Neither is there any mention of Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong whose money financed the entire pirate radio saga from 1964 to 1967.

So what is good about this DVD?

Well is you skip the silly editing blunders by people who obviously did not know what they were talking about, it has some great footage of Wonderful Radio London and Swinging Radio England that has not been seen by most people before. However, for this to turn the DVD into a "must buy" you must first be a devoted fan of this era of broadcasting. If you are, this is for you. If you are looking for a self-contained true tale of "Pirates, Texans and Teenagers", you will be disappointed. That story is waiting to be made.

By the way, my name appears in the final credits of this DVD, but I accept no responsibility for anything to do with this product offered for sale.