Off Their Rockers – 40 Years Later For Reggae Movie.
Off Their Rockers – 40 Years Later – Reggae Movie Expands Film Festival Programming
By Stephen Weir
In 1978 when the Reggae musical movement
was just getting noticed, the musicians of Trench Town were still scrambling
for money, bookings and recording contracts.
Survival meant playing as many gigs as possible, promoting records from
the backs of their motorcycles and living off the generosity of their wives,
lovers and families.
Rockers, a bargain basement movie that was
made for just $4,000 US ($500,000 JA), took the Caribbean and ultimately North
America and the UK by storm when released in 1978. A reworking of the legend of Robin Hood,
Rocker has good Rastas robbing from bad mafia and givinh back to the people of
Trench Town. Burning Spear drummer Leroy
“Horsemouth” Wallace stars the Rasta Robin Hood. His merry men are played by Jamaican
music legends, including Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Gregory, “Jah Tooth”
Isaacs, Robbie “Robbie” Shakespeare, Manley “Big Youth” Buchanan, and Lester
“Dillinger” Bullocks.
Horsemouth is dirt poor. He and his wife
have trouble buying food for their three kids, even as he scrambles to drum at
recording sessions, tourist hotels and rundown clubs. As Rocker opens he is
setting himself up in business selling records from his red motorcycle
(decorated with the Lion of Judah). When gangsters steal his bike it gets
nasty, Horsemouth and his “dread” friends plot to end the gangsters’ reign of
terror and restore justice to the people of Kingston!
Made in just two weeks, Rockers was originally meant to be a documentary about the birth of Reggae. However, the film morphed into a feature film with the actors adlibbing their lines and inventing plot scenes as the camera rolled. No one was paid, but all of the musicians and actors were happy to have a chance to tell their story to the world. |
“I was young and stupid. I just wanted the excitement, wasn’t thinking about money. All I was thinking about is this Rasta culture to spread all over the world. Spread the gospel and the works,” recalls Horsemouth in a 2014 interview with the online Jamaica music Magazine United Reggae. “You see me do that walk there (in the movie)? Yeah! John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Tony Curtis, those guys, Western guys they put that swing into their walk so I picked it up that from them.”
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| Royal Theatre - picture from 2017 festival - Stephen Weir |
Caribbean Tales worked with Royal Stompbox
(the theatre’s music movie club) and the online radio station Roots Reggae Hub
to bring the remastered movie to Toronto for the 40th anniversary showing. Roots Reggae Hub curated a live performance
with early days Reggae singer Carol Brown, DJ Lady Sharon, singer Johnny
Schorchy, and DJ English Dala to talk and perform.
The theatre was half-full for the late July
Rocker screening in Toronto. And while the live Reggae programming was well
received by the Caribbean Tales audience it didn’t sit well for the Royal
Stompbox Canadian audience. Just after one singer’s performance, a loud voice
shouted an expletive filled call to start the movie!
Rockers is the second feature film that the
annual Caribbean Tales International Film Festival has shown at the Royal
Cinema in the run-up to the official launch of the 13th annual film fest.
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| Movie director Bafaloukos and Horsemouth on set.jpg |
Associate Festival Director Diana Webley
told the Caribbean Camera “our festival theme this year is ‘Light it up’. It's
a call to action. A call to arms. A call to change. A call that’s been ringing
out for a long time. And now Caribbean filmmakers are answering that call in
force. To focus this global appeal beyond our Canadian experience, we are
asking our filmmakers to shine their lights on all the changes in the world, to
showcase their vision of change and to spread their message and lead the way.”
Between September 5th and 20th ten films
including a Special Preview Screening of HERO - Inspired by The
Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross. It stars Nickolai
Salcedo, Peter Williams (Stargate SG1), Joseph Marcell (Fresh Prince of
Belair) and Ghana's John Dumelo. The film festival founder
Frances-Anne Solomon directs the film.
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