Abba - The Movie
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Abbamovieposter.jpg
The film's release coincided with the release of Abba - The Album, that year's studio album from the group, and features many songs from that album as well as many of their earlier hits, and one, Get On The Carousel, unavailable anywhere else.
The Movie also featured a number of film-making firsts, including the first use of the flutterbox, subsequently used on Star Wars and other films.
The Plot
The film has a very loose plot which is little more than a vehicle to link together the concert footage. It concerns the adventures of Ashley (Robert Hughes), a naive radio DJ who is sent by his boss (Bruce Barry) to get an in-depth interview ("not an interview, a dialogue", demands his boss) with the group, whose fame and stature neither he nor Ashley have the first clue about. Needless to say Ashley singularly fails, and is forced to follow the group all over Australia, with repeated run-ins with the group's bodyguard (played by actor Tom Oliver) and his increasingly exasperated boss. Eventually, a stroke of luck has him bump into Stig Anderson, the group's manager, who grants him an interview. Unfortunately, he sleeps in (the dream sequence was also used as the video for the single The Name of the Game) and misses the appointment. Just as he is about to give up he bumps into the group in a lift, and manages to finally get the interview he needs, just in time to meet the deadline for the show to go out on air. He puts together the final edit in the back of a taxi on the way back from the airport as the group leave Australia for Europe. With seconds to go, the interview goes out on air.