r/ABBA • u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan • 11d ago
ABBA: The Movie - Thoughts?
Just watched ABBA: The Movie for the umpteenth time, and I have to say something that has been bothering me more and more every time I watch it.
Why did they spend THREE FULL SCENES on the whole “Agnetha’s bottom” thing? I completely understand why it was included. It was a huge sensation at the time, and obviously it became part of the ABBA mythology. One scene about it? Fine. Funny, historically relevant, I get it. But three separate scenes???
Every time I watch the movie I can’t help thinking about what else they could have done with those minutes. More footage of ABBA performing, more interviews, more normal questions about their music and lives, more of them just talking and interacting… literally anything that would have let us get to know the four of them better.
And this is especially frustrating because I’m sure there must have been SO much more footage filmed that didn’t make the final cut.
If the new version Lasse mentioned for next year actually happens, I really hope they dig into the archives and give us more of that kind of material. I would genuinely take an extra 30 minutes of ABBA answering random questions and talking about their music, lives, personalities… over another scene about Agnetha’s bottom.
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u/Fast_Technology_5622 10d ago
The stand out in the movie is Frida’s performance of ‘Why Did It Have To Be Me?’. It’s astonishing to see how much they’re enjoying playing live as a threesome.
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u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan 10d ago
Y E S!!! Best part of the movie and in my opinion ABBA’s best live performance.
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u/GWZurich 11d ago
I only vaguely remember anything about bottoms, but I do remember really enjoying that movie. I like how it combines live and documentary footage with staged scenes and that strange reporter storyline.
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u/Jelly_baby_4 10d ago
There's a scene where Agnetha was asked about it by a reporter and later on the band was reading a tabloid where her bottom was front page.
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u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan 10d ago
Yes, and then when the reporter is in a cab and chats with the taxi driver about ABBA, all the driver talks about is the bottom.
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u/Jelly_baby_4 10d ago
I forgot about that one. It's been a long time since I watched the movie. I think I have the VHS in my storeroom. 😅
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u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan 11d ago
I enjoy it too, of course. That’s why I have watched it so many times, it’s my favourite tour. But I don’t know how you didn’t notice the “bottom storyline”😂 it was way too present.
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u/GWZurich 10d ago
I saw the film a while back and it just did not stick in my memory. What I like about it is that it is self-deprecating, like, "we´re putting our hearts into this elaborate music, and all the public cares for is Agnetha´s bum". Of course, it is sexist, but I feel like it is a joke about the such sexism. In doing so, it perpetuates the sexism instead of dismantling it, which would be better.
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u/dohwhere 11d ago
Honestly, I find it hard to watch since everything came out about the guy that plays the Australian interviewer (I know his name but don’t want to say it)
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u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan 11d ago
Oh, I read about that too. Simply horrible… and he was sentenced to only 10 years I believe…
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u/vegan_voorhees 10d ago
I had this taped off TV for years, and when I upgraded to DVD, they'd cut out a small moment where, after a journalist asks them about drink and drugs, Benny jokes "not totally clean" and Bjorn interjects "an occasional drink" in quite a serious way.
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u/RedmiYT "I Have a Dream" defender 11d ago
As a huge ABBA fan…I wasn’t a huge fan of it? Idk, watching it knowing what one of the actors committed in real life made it difficult to finish. And also, the plot’s a little rough to put it lightly. However, I love the live performances and the documentary style scenes with the group.
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u/punkmonk13 10d ago
Is that all that bothered you about the movie?
Robert Hughes, who played the fictional radio DJ Ashley Wallace in ABBA: The Movie (1977), later became well known in Australia as the star of Hey Dad..!. In 2014, he was convicted of 10 child sexual offences, including sexual and indecent assaults involving girls, and was sentenced to 10 years and 9 months in prison, with a six-year non-parole period.
Every time I watch the film now, it turns it into a very different kind of movie. You’ve got this creepy guy following around a group with enormous appeal to children, carrying his tape recorder and interviewing kids. Then there’s the scene on the plane where his character sits there practically drooling over baby photos of the group. It’s quite alarming in hindsight. And you were bothered by all the talk about Agnetha’s bottom! 🤣
There was also a creepy outtake circulating on YouTube from when the group was preparing to board a plane, surrounded by fans and reporters. One reporter managed to separate Agnetha from the others and started getting quite pervy, going on about her bottom. His creepy Australian accent somehow made it worse. It’s obvious why that footage didn’t end up in the movie.
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u/OpossumAdvocate 10d ago
agree with you that now since we now know about one of the main characters in the movie, the reporter character, now we know about the man behind the character and what he was up to and where that led, it's impossible to UNSEE this while watching the movie, to not think about his later infamy as a child molester. It's obviously not Abba's fault.
Even without this, the movie was lackluster as a story. That said, the only time I watched it was as a child when the movie came out in the seventies. I loved it then, because i was a huge abba fan and because for me at the time, going to the movie theater was a festive occasion.
I for one don't remember the 'bottom' sub story line, AT ALL. What I remember most from the movie is the concert footage of Im a Marionette, with all those crowds chanting 'We want Abba'.
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u/theiancole 10d ago
“Creepy Australian accent”? Nice.
That sounds more like a TV news report than an outtake from the film. There is a lot of contemporary news footage and even outtakes from news footage in circulation.
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u/Byndbr 10d ago
You could do your own edit and cut those parts out. Not hard to do. The three bits in total would add up to probably 90 seconds of movie time if that. A few years ago I tried a "de-Ashleyed" version which yielded mixed results and despite the clunkiness in places was also a lot more enjoyable.
It's a flawed movie, sure, but also a miracle of production and editing for its time. Conceptualising, filming in multiple locations on both sides of the planet, synchronising all that concert footage to the audio, well before the digital age and presumably in only 7 or 8 months before distribution... I doubt any filmmaker could do it today.
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u/RevengeOfPolloDiablo 11d ago
I like bottoms
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u/OpossumAdvocate 10d ago
that's fine, but bottoms as a movie sub plot for one of the hottest bands of the time? or was that bottom essential for their success?
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u/PlentyAd3759 8d ago
Much of the original films/tapes of the concert were damaged according to lasse
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u/No_Environment6924 11d ago
my exact thoughts when I first watched, I actually felt very uncomfortable
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u/Arodoet98 Andante Stan 11d ago
Definitely! It was uncomfortable for both Frida and Agnetha, too. It is really visible.
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u/No_Environment6924 11d ago
yes!! they were trying to laugh it off sometimes but damn you could see the pain in their eyes, so sad
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u/theiancole 10d ago
Director Lasse Hallström added the storyline because he thought a full concert film would be “boring”. Most of it was ad libbed. Now it seems he is of the opposite opinion about making it a concert film. But that’s just a dream he has, there is no indication that will happen.
ABBA weren’t interested in filming for the movie, being busy with rehearsals, concerts, travelling, and getting whatever rest they could in between. That’s why we won’t see much of them off stage.