THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (New World Pictures)

Directed by Jeff Stein)

by Mitch Cohen

Typical of the oblique strategies employed by The Kids Are Alright is the curious fact that the song that gives the film its title is never performed, heard or referred to. Such evasions, which seem willfully designed to withhold information most of us would consider pertinent to a celluloid history of the Who—would you believe nary a mention of Keith Moon's passing and the effect on the group's future? Or of KenRussell's Tommy (or Daltrey's movie career)? Or of their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival?—make Jeff Stein's loving compilation like a visual greatest hits album without liner notes. What attempts there are to put the Who in some kind of historical rock perspective, mostly through Pete Townshend's articulate interpolation, are so sketchy that only the already Who-converted are likely to get the point, and they've probably seen much of this footage at rock conventions; The Kids Are A Iright is a fanzine movie without a fanzine's attention to chronological detail.