Cocksucker Blues (1972) Online

As an artifact of rock n' roll in the 70's this film is hard to beat. . The movie demystifies the band - Mick, Keith etc. seem extremely ordinary going about the day to day drudgery of being on tour. As far as the music goes this was the band at their peak both live and on record. I didn't realize what a good country/blues piano player Keith is. There are also a couple of interesting moments showing both Jagger and Richards composing. Visually, director Frank's purpose seems to be to re-create the pictorial equivalent of a heroin trip. The film is an at times almost unwatchable series of grainy images, disembodied voices muttering banalities, and freakish distorted faces. The in-famous sex/rape (?) of the groupies on the plane accompanied by the Stones playing cabalistic percussion says a lot about the attitude the group took to the various women who flocked to them. It is disgusting/haunting/ and comical all at the same time. Tough viewing but essential for any fan of rock music.

An East Village guitar-store owner sold me a bootleg copy of this legendary Robert Frank documentary, which was suppressed by its subjects, the Rolling Stones. Full of arty effects and stony, fragmentative editing, the movie intermittently fascinates in its depiction of a day in the life of the Stones--a life that alternates between massive, almost unthinkable amounts of ego-gratification, and routine, torpid, everyday boredom. The intent seems to be an anthropological portrait of the habits of visiting alien gods: the Stones are made both otherworldly-regal and incalculably drab. Because of the scenes of groupie-shagging and substance abuse, Frank was forced to credit the Stones as "playing characters" in the end credits (if memory serves, Keith Richards plays "Pizza Delivery Man"), and the picture is available to be screened, by Mick-generated court order, only when Frank is present.

A couple of things at the start. The rating of five is purely because I can't accurately rate this movie. Enjoyment is based upon your love of the Stones. My feelings for the Stones is one of like not love. I do enjoy their music but I think that they are little more a money machine now with their interesting music coming out of the various side projects.

This is the story of the Stones 1972 tour (sort of, director Robert Frank is interested in doing more than a straight documentary). Mostly its following the Stones from Hotel room to hotel room and performance to performance. Its the rich and famous interacting with the not so rich and far from famous, with everyone behaving badly. In its way its a sad story as Mick and the boys seem to drift aimlessly with in the confines of their cages. How they manged to survive it and, not go mad and continue on the road is probably a story that needs to be told. This story on the other hand is a bit dull and long at 90 minutes. It comes alive in fits and starts, mostly when we get to see one of the too few musical numbers (the Stevie Wonder/ Stones piece is amazing).

This film is rarely screened since due to a lawsuit it can only be run once a year and only when the director is present. Its rather dumb if you ask me, but the Stones were unhappy with the result and how they are seen to be. Why this film is still restricted considering all thats passed in the 30 plus years since its filming is beyond me. At this point it couldn't hurt the boys at all, since all it does is give visualization to what we knew already.

If you can manage to see this and you're a Stones fan do so. If you're not a fan you may want to give it a try, if for no other reason than its a unique and rare experience (due to the law suit that restricts its viewing).

For me, an admittedly huge Stones fan, this documentary was the stuff of legend. I could not believe it when I saw this in an independent music store. I had read quite a bit about this movie, but to actually see and hear it was awesome.

The Stones, after an incredible run of great albums, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Streeet, tour America in 1972. This tour is generally considered to be one of the most decadent, excess filled tours in rock n roll history. They hired Robert Greenfield to write a book, and Robert Frank to film it. Given nearly unlimited access, Frank tries to convey what it's like on a rock tour of this magnitude. I have read that some of the scenes were manufactured, such as Keith and Bobby Keyes tossing the TV out the window, the famous groupie scene on the plane, among them.

Some of the scenes are a bit much. Heroin induced rants, rambling naked groupies, shooting up, all by the large entourage of hangers on that the Stones took around America with them. The Stones are in very few of these scenes, sub-titles on who these people are would have been nice. Some scenes are just bad, like the shot of what looks like Mick from the waist down, fondling himself, then you see Mick holding a camera, to supposedly make you wonder if that was Mick fondling himself. Was that supposed to be artsy?

Sometimes Frank does break through on what touring can be. Keith trying to order a fruit plate from room service, or being having to sign autographs as he checks out of a hotel. Playing cards. Charlie morosely sitting in front of a TV.

The excess as it takes it's toll. While Mick discusses business with Ahmet Ertegum, Keith is in the next room nodding off in the arms of some groupie, who also nods off, leaving them in a tangled mess. Chgarlie has said this tour is when the bulls..t level reached its highest point, particularly when Truman Capote and Princess Radish show up. That scene made me squirm, as these ancient, boring old farts glom onto the tour.

Then there is the reason for the tour. THE MUSIC. The music f...ing rocks. The Stones play their tails off. From the moment Mick pops thru the curtain as it rises, and the band is blasting out Brown Sugar, till the encore when Mick leads out Stevie Wonder and his band,(the opening act)to do a killer medley of Uptight and Satisfaction, the music kicks. Watch Mick as he get his rocks off during All Down the Line, as he pushes Charlie to kick it out even harder. Mick Taylor playing beautiful, fluid, perfect lead guitar. I have about 6 bootlegs from this era of the Stones, and he amazes every time, musically the Stones at their best, yet watching him on stage, I can see why he left. Bill Wyman is a whirling dervish in comparison. Ron Wood couldn't carry his guitar case as a player, but I can see why Ronnie's personality has helped keep the band together.

There is lots of other great stuff, Keith playing some very nice piano. Listening to a single of Happy, wondering if it should be in mono. Playing pool in a bar down south with a bunch of brothers.

This is a great documentary of rock n roll on tour in the early 70's. I personally think the Maysles Brothers, who did Gimme Shelter, would have done a better job, and the shelved double album with the Stones and Stevie Wonder should definitely be brought out of the vault.

I would recommend this to as essential viewing for all fans of rock n roll.

Sheer brilliance from Robert Frank, one of the great visual artists of our time. Let's say right at the start that the concert footage (the only portions of "CB" in color) captures some of the Stones' best performances ever on film, including a splendid "Midnight Rambler" and a wonderful medley of "Uptight" and "Satisfaction" with Stevie Wonder.

But the meat of this film is in the off-the-cuff, life-on-the-road footage, shot in a beautiful, grainy black and white. Other important filmmakers worked with the Stones before and after (J-L Godard on "One Plus One," Hal Ashby on the regrettable "Let's Spend the Night Together"), but this is the great one because it does the opposite of glamorizing the band -- it reveals the quotidian nature of their antics on the road. Lots of outrageous things happen: roadies shoot up, Keith Richards throws a TV set out the window and displays himself in various states of extreme intoxication and/or nodding off, groupies are abused on the tour bus, etc.

But Frank reveals it all in his unique deadpan style, letting you see the band members as individuals carrying on an everyday existence rather than as celebrities. In his camera, the excess is all of a piece with the mundane details: Jagger sitting on his hotel bed ordering a bowl of fruit, a conversationless walk along a road, etc.

Frank doesn't deglamorize his subject, either -- despite the squalor of some of what he shows us, he isn't out to debunk the Stones and their hangers-on, but to reveal them to us as part of everyday life and the spectacle they put on as a workaday component of the larger spectacle society feeds to the masses as entertainment. The effect is a little like the messier backstage scenes of such films as von Sternberg's "The Blue Angel," Bergman's "Sawdust and Tinsel," or Fellini's "Variety Lights," where the everyday routine that goes on behind the making of an illusion seems somehow harder and crueller than it would in any other setting. But it's life, as Robert Frank observes it in our airbrushed, late-capitalist world.

The wonderful last shot, as Jagger throws his arm into the air amidst an explosion of lights and camera flashes, ends it with a flourish, but by now we've seen the mess behind the flash. This film grows you up.

Officially, "CB" was the film of the Stones' 1972 US tour, but for murky reasons (one hears it was the shooting-up sequences that did it) the band barred its release and only allows it to be shown occasionally. In its place, the relatively uninspired "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones!" was released. Too bad -- catch "CB" if you can, or seek out one of the many bootleg videotapes circulating, although the color repro on the latter can sometimes be lousy.

I like both Robert Frank and the Rolling Stones, but this combination is not that hot. As the other reviewer ( withnail-4) pointed out, this is pretty banal with lots of drug taking. Robert Frank is a photographer and this film seems like a motor wind gone wild. Imagine the "Exile on Main Street" cover coming to life and you have a pretty good idea of what this film is going to be like. The mystique comes from the fact that the Rolling Stones have done a pretty good job of keeping this off the market and out of the theatres. Thanks to modern technology, this film is pretty readily available in forms of varying quality. In fact, it was a local film groups showing this from a DVD that rekindled my interest in seeing the film. Short of being a serious fan of the Stones, you will be pretty bored with this film. You might even be pretty bored if you are a serious

CS Blues is one of the most infamous documentaries ever made. So controversial that the Rolling Stones refused to call it a documentary they were funding and wanted to be seen as just "actors". The film, directed by Robert Frank and produced by Marshall Chess, details highlights of TRS's Exile On Main St. tour from late 1972. While we see some great numbers from The Stones such as "Midnight Rambler", "Brown Sugar" and a great duo performance by Mick Jagger and Stevie Wonder, the film is more known for the explicit sex and drug use. We see what many have called "real reality-TV" here. Orgies, various drugs being used, and the slice-of-life look at what the later years of the hippie generation had brought.

There are some hilarious scenes, though. The woman credited as "Snatch Girl" makes some hilariously druggy comments; Keith Richards attempt to order fresh fruit from the concierge is another good bit. Later, Richards and saxophonist Bobby Keys (who still tours with TRS today) are shown tossing a T.V. out the window in the guise of T.V. repairmen. Sadly, we also see the anorexic heroin addict shooting up and you wonder if she or any of the other groupies survived.

TRS are not part of any of the explicit activities; they are merely spectators to the party. However, early in the film, a man who may be Mick Jagger is seen fondling his nether regions. Also, the infamous CS Blues song is played at one point.

Many originally thought that CS Blues was a lost film but enough copies survived into the digital era and have made it onto DVD. You might be able to see this huge slice of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N Roll somewhere. It is certainly something else.

I used to think that 'Gimme Shelter' was the end all, be all of Rolling Stones documentaries. The Maysles' film is undeniably heroic, but its shine and polish, its squeaky clean view of the Stones as consummate professionals utterly belies the fact that road life with the skinny brits did involve a good deal of sex, drugs, and a bit of rock and roll too. Filmed during a tour to promote my personal favorite Stones record, 'Exile on Main St,' 'Cocksucker Blues' is a grimy, sordid foray in the behind the scenes workings of the Rolling Stones machine.

Gloriously filmed in both color and black and white super 8, and artfully presented with a strong focus on non-diagetic audio tracks, 'Cocksucker Blues' is no simple document of events, but a solid work of art in its own right. The haphazard filming style during performances is more kinetic and subjective than the Maysles' lens and suits the jarring, hell-bent nature of the music.

The craziness of tour life is captured in some particularly amazing and unforgettable scenes. The kook, nearly suicidal fan, whose baby's been taken away due to mom's acid habit, the primitive and forceful disrobing of women on the plane while the band cooks up a beat to go with it, and the junky sound man all create a subterrainian truthful texture to the Stones experience that was most likely not available to the Maysles brothers.

The defining moment of this film is watching an inhumanly bored Charlie Watts staring morosely at commercials on a hotel television screen. In fact, you'll find yourself slumped in a chair somewhat like Charlie as you watch this haggard, limply compelling shambles of a documentary. The Stones themselves come off less as satan's own emissaries on earth and more as boring, boorish, and mundane teenagers -- emissaries of casual personal disintegration. It all leaves one feeling icky, stained, and disrespectful of rock legends, which is probably why it's impossible to see today. That, and the scenes with groupies having sex and roadies shooting up and nodding off. Interminably boring and unstructured, but probably a dead-on accurate portrait of a travelling rock band.

Like a handful of Rolling Stones fans, I found the film C***sucker Blues through bootlegging. There was just no other way around it; there has been so much written about how this was the 'unreleased' Stones documentary, that it was much too controversial and shocking to be released- had actual sex and drugs really depicted hardcore without a flinching camera lid- and that it was even suppressed by Mick Jagger and the Stones. Having now seen the film, it becomes clear that it isn't unfair to figure on why it never seen the official light of public day. It is pretty graphic with the sex (chiefly on a plane we see some groupies getting it on with some members of the Stones crew, I don't think they were the Stones themselves having the sex, although they were hilariously shaking tambourines and beating drums like some tribal ritual), casual with pornographic detail in the nudity, and the drug use- primarily coke and heroin but also a little grass- is all real and done almost like it's nothing at all.

So, to play devil's advocate, there is a reason for the Stones why something like this wouldn't be good for their 'image', whatever that might be, as opposed to Gimme Shelter which despite the Altamont nightmare was crafted by true masters of the documentary craft (the Maysles brothers), where as director Robert Frank crafted a scatter-shot, collage-like assemblage of footage, veering between avant-garde and home movie. Maybe it could have gotten a release in a true underground level, but the fact was, and remains, that they are one of the biggest bands ever, regardless of their notorious times.

And yet, there is also another argument, and this even more-so could be said for today, that C***sucker Blues, in revealing what's shocking mixed with the banal dealings of hotel rooms and the fly-on-the-wall style on back-stage, is important in retrospect. This way of rock and roll life simply doesn't exist anymore, with the BIG press being Dick Cavett and the sex and drugs and groupies just there, and the attitudes so casual. It's seeing life on the road and life in the hotel rooms and life on the stage and in little private moments with this band and those around them, and on a pure rock and roll movie level it's definitely the most primitive in construction. Artistry, however brief (i.e. slow-motion shots of a Exile on Main Street billboard), gives way to Frank just being there and getting everything he can, however mundane it might seem to be. Why not let today's audiences, more than three decades later, take a view into the unfiltered time capsule?

Granted, as mentioned, Frank is no Maysles, so the camera-work sometimes looks amateurish (the sound guys occasionally tap the microphone just so that the editor probably knew where to cut) and, sadly, it's probably not too much of a wonder why he didn't work again outside of the lowest of low-budget art-house pictures and shorts. But he does manage to capture, for those Stones fans who would be so dedicated to seek out the film (or, for that matter, be one of the two dozen more or less that get to see it at private screenings commissioned by the Stones each year) not just some of the finest/craziest moments in Stones history (i.e. Richards and friends, in now as a cliché today, throwing the TV out the hotel room window), but just rock in general.

Contrary to what Jagger said in a recent interview about one of the reasons he clashed with Frank, that there wasn't enough live music footage, there's a good plenty of live performances, if maybe not as many as some fans might expect. There's awesome cuts of Brown Sugar, half of an intense Midnight Rambler, Happy, Street Fighting Man. But probably most joyous of all is seeing, almost as a total surprise, Stevie Wonder playing a kind of medley with the Stones, starting with Uptight (Everything is Alright) and going into Satisfaction. This is pure musical ecstasy, of people going full-throttle to put on a show for the crowds, but also just digging the music so much that it looks like nothing else matters. If only for scenes like that, amid the masses of footage of the randomness and fun and down time of touring, is C***sucker Blues an achievement worth seeking this dangerous, crude piece of non-fiction. 8.5/10

I saw a screening of this last year at the Tate modern, i had heard a lot of the rumours surrounding this film... Was Robert Frank going to be there, was it the only screening that year... Well no on both points, it was however the only time it was likely to be shown in London this decade. But it did contain some of the most legendary and amazing rock and roll images that exist.. there were groupies having mass orgies on private jets, TV's thrown over balconies, awesome drug taking, celebrities, and sheer backstage boredom. Half way through, however, i did think, this is rubbish, its just full of rock clichés. But then i thought, actually no. This is where the clichés come from, they were the first people to do these things... And that is what you have to remember when watching this film, it is truly a snapshot in to the creation of rock and roll. If you get a chance to see an authorised screening of this film... Don't miss out. If that never happens, there are always copies floating about....

Joe

'Cocksucker Blues' is a cinema-verite style time capsule, filmed by American photographer Robert Frank, who functions as a sort of fly on the dressing room wall, so to speak. As such, comparisons to any other existing "rockumentary" are pointless.

The film is essentially a collection of real life situations captured during the Rolling Stones' infamous 1972 U.S. tour, when their celebrity status had reached critical mass. Viewers are sucked into the band's fishbowl existence, travelling from jet to hotel to venue, spending time, in many cases, in a surprisingly un-glamorous fashion.

If nothing else, the film lets the fan into the eye of the storm; the band's onstage performances are repeatedly set in contrast with their travelling constraints, while around them both the media and the public continually orbit in a veritable feeding frenzy.

The viewers' realization of what is the general event-less reality of a rock band's actual offstage touring experience--even more pointed, given the Stones' worldwide notoriety--makes the live musical highlights all the more impressive, and reveals insight into why no hotel room t.v. is safe from any rock band who can (or, sometimes, can't) pay for what they destroy.

The band's treadmill lifestyle, coupled with the fact that the group is all but isolated from their fans lends perspective to why touring bands tend to indulge in random acts of destruction, self and otherwise. Possibly the most inane segment of the film is the backstage presence of seriously unwelcome hangers on such as writer Truman Capote and Princess Lee Radziwill, tabloid-style jet setters for whom the Stones are merely the Flavour of the Week, their dressing room another place to be "seen".

Obviously, a tour film's main appeal is to the fans of the group. In the case of the Rolling Stones, their inner sanctum is harder to reach than almost any other, and considering the mythology that has built up around the band over the last 30 years, they deserve credit for having the courage to reveal their private world, warts and all.

Anyone who has seen the film can understand why it has never seen official release, and probably never will. And that just makes 'Cocksucker Blues' an even bigger treat for true fans of the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World. See it if you can; regardless of its' flaws, it's still an amazing document of yet another turbulent period in the amazing lifespan of this remarkably resilient band.

It's gritty, grimy, meandering, raw, crass, dark, dreary, miserable and spectacular - just what life on the road with the World's Greatest Rock Band should be. This seemingly uninhibited peek behind the curtain of Pop celebrity is not always pretty, not always inspiring, but it is nearly always absolutely fascinating.

There are few people in the world that can comprehend exactly what it means - what it feels like - to be at the center of the whirling cyclone of attention directed towards international mega stars, and Robert Frank does his best to give us a meager glimpse of the insatiable monster. The few moments of near still quiet that occur between Mick and Bianca are so oddly surreal, partly because of the quaintly eerie sound from the music box that Bianca is playing with, but largely because such mundane moments of domestic interaction are in such outrageous contrast to the non stop vortex of madness surrounding them. Business plans and arrangements are somehow accomplished in fractured, hectic, incomprehensible shouts and whispers among the din of their party life. Society's sophisticates, like Truman Capote and Lee "Princess" Radziwill rub sweaty elbows with the likes of "Snatch Girl", "Junky Soundman" and other lowly denizens of the underground conduit. Girls are witnessed fulfilling every promise that is implied by their status as Groupies. And even other celebrities at times seem bewildered and stunned by the carnivalesque proceedings, like Tina Turner's moment in the dressing room where she is every bit a deer in the headlights of the Stones' thundering locomotive. Maybe she always looked that way back then, battered as she was by Ike, but her expression is so perfectly matched to my own feelings of shock and awe.

The few live musical moments are thrilling in their intimacy, their proximity to that entity that is the Band at work. On and back stage the camera functions as a trusted band mate. It's the eyes and ears and heart of an active, invaluable member of the group - the audience. And as valuable and irreplaceable as that role is, we, the fans, are still left behind when the camera closes in on the face of an enraptured (possibly tripping) Keith as he unleashes a flesh tearing solo. No one but the boys themselves will ever know just exactly what wonderful, magical, mysterious stuff it was to be at the center of their mad, beautiful world, but now I have a fair clue, and it's awesome.

Eternally ebbing just around the edges of cinema lore there exists a handful of films that, for one reason or another, you were never allowed to see. Whether legal or personal, the reasons behind such a decision more or less guarantee that someone, somewhere it going to doggedly pursue the film until a copy is unearthed. Take, for example, The Rolling Stones 1972 backstage documentary "Cocksucker Blues", a film that so dissatisfied the band that they got a court order to keep it out of distribution.

The story goes that in 1972, legendary still photographer Robert Frank was involved in a documentary that would capture the Stones – for better and for worse – during their North American tour to promote their album "Exile on Main St." The result was "Cocksucker Blues", a film with a very simple approach, the band is filmed cinéma vérité, warts and all, with several cameras lying around back stage so anyone could pick one up and start filming. This means that any and all backstage bits of debauchery and excess could and would be captured on film, everything from wild sex parties to rampant drug use. What you see in the film is not exactly surprising. The Stones were not happy with the results. They were concerned about their image as it was portrayed in the film (but more likely because some of the things they are doing on film could land them in jail.)

For years, "Cocksucker Blues" (which Mick wrote to irritate the record label) remained hidden and was only screened on the provision that it was allowed to be shown a few times a year with the director present. Meanwhile, for the public, it became a bootleg legend. Bad copies were available from indie video stores and later some bad looking prints began showing up around the internet. Today, more people have probably seen the film than any decade past, and for the hard-lined movie obsessed, the film is something of a lost legend.

Now, let's get to the million dollar question. Is the movie any good? Well, that depends on you. The movie isn't exactly insightful, what is contained in this film (and what stays in your memory) are the moments of sex, drugs and rock and roll. The band and nearly every member of their entourage do drugs freely. Keith and Mick do drugs only in fleeting glances. Look fast and you can see Mick snorting cocaine off a knife. A glance captures Keith rolling up a dollar bill before shooing away the cameraman. Others are not so careful. One disturbing scene has a couple shooting heroine in their hotel room and, as they talk to the camera, you can slowly see the drug taking effect. The sex is just as frequent. Lots of naked people (mostly women), lots of sex, especially during a wild party on an airplane that culminates in the most bizarre display of cunnilingus you're ever likely to experience.

Those moments happen frequently but in between are quite moments when we get a look at the band during downtime. This was 1972, the 60s were over, and the band was obviously tired. We can see that they are exhausted, possibly by the lifestyle, possibly by each other. Mick Jagger in particular has moments when he is in serious need of a good night's sleep. Maybe it was the times; this was the band's first North American tour since four people were killed at their free concert at Altamont four years earlier. The free love generation was on its way out, 60s anger was about to give way to 70s indifference and there are moments – fleeing moments – when you can see that the members of the band would rather be somewhere else. Then they hit the stage and their lethargy all but disappears. The Rolling Stones have always occupied the stage with fire and energy and none of that is lost here. The best moment – in fact the best moment in the entire movie – occurs when the Stone are on stage singing a medley with Stevie Wonder. That moment was magic. I could have watched an hour of that material.

What are not so magical are the moments when the film grinds into tedium when the band and their entourage are backstage or in their hotel room just doing nothing. The camera is on, it captures some people talking or just laying around and those scenes go on and on. Those moments I could do without. "Cocksucker Blues" is not a great movie; it's more of a curiosity that captures a legendary band at a crucial moment in their history, if not on their best behavior.

*** (of four)

semi-staged documentary trying to show the coolness of the rolling stones, but the only thing they can think of doing is taking drugs and trashing hotel rooms. the banality is overwhelming, and displays the collapse of a counter culture into unimaginative squalor. I like the Stones' music, but they make lame celebrities.

Watched this on my Ipod on a holiday flight as a real dyed in the wool Stones fan. However, the copy I saw had obvious editing problems and may have been a rough-cut, but then again maybe not...

John Lennon once likened the madness around the Beatles mid-60's tours as like Fellini's Satyricon, well here it's certainly made flesh as we get a more candid than candid fly-on-the-wall insight into life on the road with the Rolling Stones around the time of their 1972 US tour. It's not an edifying sight, with groupies being treated as casual sex-objects to the amusement of the leering male entourage, drugs openly ingested by needle and inhalation and of course the classic "rock-star" cliché of Keith Richard ceremoniously dumping a TV out of the band's high-storey hotel window.

In between these scenes of madness are odd shots of, or sequences with celebrity hangers-on like Truman Capote and Dick Cavett, as well as star support turns Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder and endless static non-shots of Mick and a gap-toothed Keith (Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor and Charlie Watts barely get a look-in) and other grainy shots of producer Jimmy Miller well on his way to his early drug-overdose death, if the footage here is any guide. At times in fact the whole sometimes looks like some cheap, almost "snuff"-type exploitation movie.

Somehow though, the endless boozing and schmoozing doesn't affect the band on stage and they look like the great louche rockers they were by this point. Thus there's the odd occasional musical interlude where the "film" flickers to life (an exciting encore of Stevie's "Uptight" spliced with the Stones' "Satisfaction") and a rollicking "Happy" but watching this monument to decadence, hedonism and self-indulgence left me at the end actually liking the Stones less, certainly as people. No, for me the whole sex and drugs and rock roll mystique is shot to bits here and I can only hope that the Stones themselves are a bit older and wiser now.

To paraphrase John Lennon again, you shouldn't ought to have been there!

Back in the 1990s Boston showed this little disaster. I'm not a Stones fan but just had to see this for the title alone. It was sold out and it was kind of fun just waiting in line. It was a two cinema place (this was before the multiplexes took over) and the other cinema was showing some mainstream film. There were two lines--one for CS Blues and then the other movie. At one point the usher came out and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "This is the line for C***sucker Blues." Almost the entire line broke out laughing! That was the most fun I had that night cause this movie itself is pretty dull. Just b&w and color footage of the Stones on their 1972 concert tour. It's also incredibly depressing and there are scenes of drug abuse. I'm not rating this since I'm not a Stones fan. If you love the Stones you'll probably love this. But a casual viewer (like me) will probably be bored.

The film is excellent, is uncensored, but with good breeding. That was the real life not only of the Rolling Stones, but of 90% of hippies in that period. In this film you can see the Glory of those golden years! Rolling Stones was not release this film officially, easy to figure out why! All rock stars are doing the same thing backstage, not only the Rolling Stones; When you're bored, Sex, drugs & Rock'N'Roll is the solution... The Rolling Stones had enough courage to put it on film! After seeing this movie, I've been thinking at "Fire and Loathing in Las Vegas" :) "Cocksucker Blues" was the title of a song Mick Jagger wrote to be the Stones' final single for Decca Records, as per their contract, but the track was refused by Decca and only released later on a West German compilation in 1983, although the compilation was discontinued and re-released without the song. You can find the lyrics of this track on the Internet, and you will see why Decca Records refused it... Of all the tours the Rolling Stones have made across North America, the 1972 tour is still remembered as the most outrageous, most provocative, most inventive musical outing the fab five from London ever performed. The film was shot cinéma vérité, with several cameras, making it a real masterpiece of those times. If you like real music, you must see this !

An "infamous" film, if you will - never released, but not exactly difficult to get your hands on if you are persistent.

I eagerly anticipated all of the "controversial" moments, awaiting a festival of groupie abuse and substance indulgence. To my surprise, these bits proved to be dull and tiresome, the real gem in this film being the excellent live performances by The Stones.

Years of such consistent, excellent music makes it all but impossible to refer to any Stones era as being "their prime", but the concert footage here shows them well and truly on form and, if you will, on song. It is almost criminal that performances with Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder have all but been buried and forgotten about owing to this film being buried.

I hope one day that this gets a legal, cleaned up release. Edit out all the non-music stuff and just release the concert footage if nothing else, for the sake of all music lovers!

Saw this movie last night in Toronto at TIFF and can well see why this film had a court restriction attached to it back then. This film could have done serious damage to their tours.

From what I have read, cameras were left for anyone to pickup and film whenever and whatever which can explain how some of these scenes were taken.

Considering this film was made just a few years after Brian Jones's death due to drugs this fact obviously didn't make much of an impact on anyone.

Movie is shaky and loud at times and dialogue not clear but you take it for what it is ... a piece of music history.

I like the Stones older music, not so much in love with the dudes that I would defend them though. This movie starts good, or fair enough. I didn't mind initial scenes of excess-- was to be expected from what I had already heard about the film...

Problem; heroin taking, groupy fondling, and much of the gabbing wasn't done by the Stones but by some dude, who knows who the hell he was, who was enjoying the excess. So I have to agree with Mick and the gang, this movie's exploitive in that it features them, and keeps cutting to some scumbag getting his kicks from the attention he got out of association. Not my bag.

The Stones are stoned, who cares. Best line, when Mick is messing with some 16MM cameras and looks up at the documentarian, in a very stoned out scene, saying 'Do you wear the same socks everyday?'

Worst is the scene that looks like something out of a Bucky Beaver 8MM porn stag film... Don't worry ma, I didn't see anything because obviously they hadn't invented razors back then...

Rent "Give Me Shelter" instead (if you haven't seen it on DVD.) Trust me, if you were missing out I'd tell you.

This may be the shortest review ever. I enjoyed the other reviewers opinions. The movie was definitely a pretty damn entertaining view into the world of rock royalty in the early 70's. However the movie is worth watching just for the Rolling Stones bringing Stevie Wonder out to join them. That was a pretty great show to have been at.......or did they did do that every show?

I really liked this movie, I think it works on many levels, and the fact that it has many levels is itself interesting. It neither analyzes, glamorizes, or de-glamorizes anyone. It's a fly-on-the-wall. It's nonlinear and linear. Linear in the sense that it follows both the tour and playlist, at the same time. Non-linear in that no storyline is imposed and no agenda or imposed concept. And the editing is phenomenal, interweaving color and b/w, and sound from one scene into and out of another. The sound editing especially, the switch from the mayhem outside the concert to the silence of walking across the tarmac to border the plane was great.

I would have loved to hear more about what happened in Montreal and what happened to Leroy, but that would have destroyed the basic idea of the film, and I'm sure there must have been more stories worthy of expansion.

This film, to me, is not some much about the Rolling Stones, but more about a phenomena, and the real people that live it through.

Co*ksucker Blues (1972)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Notorious documentary covering The Rolling Stones on their Exhile on Main St. tour. The Stones refused to let this thing get released so poor quality bootlegs is the only way to see it. I saw a really poor print several years ago and hated it but I gave the film a second viewing after a remastered version got out there. This version certainly looked great but the documentary remains an embarrassingly bad film. The notorious bits include Mick masturbating, Keith getting head from a groupie, Keith throwing a television out of a hotel window plus countless other scenes of heroin use and groupie banging. Those things are certainly an eye opener considering who's doing it but outside that this film is downright dull and boring. The director gave everyone a camera to film with and for some damn reason not too much was filmed or at least put into the film. There's very little concert footage and another infamous story from the tour; Mick and Keith getting arrested before a show and not starting that show until after midnight aren't mentioned. Poor on pretty much all levels with the exception of seeing the "dirty" side of the music.

Having seen their previous documentary, Gimme Shelter, I decided to check The Rolling Stones' next one that's uploaded on YouTube: C*cksucker Blues. There's a reason it has never been officially released and it has to do with all the drugs and sex depicted here that must have been embarrassing to them even then despite the more liberal time they were in during the making of this film. With all that, there's also plenty of boring talking scenes concerning people I didn't recognize. I did like seeing famous people like Dick Cavett-whose interview portions with Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman are some of the most interesting parts of the film, Tina Turner, and Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun not to mention Andy Warhol in some scenes. And Mick's then-wife Bianca was also fascinating to watch. Otherwise, it was just one boring stretch after another when it wasn't on the concert footage of which the most entertaining parts were when opening act Stevie Wonder dueted with the group on "Uptight/Satisfaction" and when Mick sang with bandmate Keith Richards on "Happy". So on summary, this film with the unmentionable title is a mixed bag for me.