“Consistently convincing, generally hilarious”: This Is Spinal Tap reviewed in 1984

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this consistently convincing, generally hilarious, spoof ‘rockumentary’ is that the all-American team handle so well not only the broad conventions of a form usually exclusive to British television (Eric Idle and Neil Innes’ The Rutles and The Comic Strip’s Bad News Tour being the most obvious precedents), but precise minutiae like accents, outmoded slang, and the uniquely British reactions of a bunch of London pub musicians adrift in the wasteland of the American music business. 

Despite its merciless dissection of the dreadfulness of the several unnamed groups who provide the film’s inspiration, This Is Spinal Tap does try to have it both ways. The kinetically shot Spinal Tap concerts are thronged with insanely appreciative fans, but otherwise the film gets a lot of cruel humour out of the fact that the group are, in the words of an overheard disc jockey, “currently residing in the ‘Where Are They Now?’ file”. 

Furthermore, while the lyrics of the Spinal Tap songs are richly parodic of much that is awful, offensive or sexist about rock music, they are as difficult to hear as the genuine article, prompting one to hope that the useful lyric sheet included in the publicity handout will be widely distributed. The songs are more authentically painful to endure than the softer but less indulgent satire provided by Paul Williams for Phantom of the Paradise; and one is not surprised to learn that, like the Belushi/Aykroyd Blues Brothers before them, the film’s stars have been touring as a concert attraction in America.

The mock-documentary structure allows director Rob Reiner to put in a marvellously apt appearance (“Hi, I’m a filmmaker”) as an ageing movie brat, complete with Coppola beard and Milius hat, and also provides leeway for several startlingly believable bits of archive footage which recreate the look of British (Pop, Look and Listen) and American (Jamboree Bop) music television in the 1960s. Otherwise, there are a few too many overextended gags and, out of an inordinately large supporting cast, only Fran Drescher and Paul Shaffer as record company stooges make much impact. 

However, the squabbles among the group and their managers are extremely well done – especially when Jeanine suggests an astrological theme concert, and Ian Faith argues with the Polymer executives about the supposedly sexist sleeve of Smell the Glove (showing remarkable restraint, Reiner keeps the rejected design off-screen). 

Although the music is hideous and the characters simpleminded to the point of lobotomy, the film does get some sort of emotional charge out of the finale, in which Nigel and David are reconciled and Spinal Tap are reborn. But then, as David says when one of his ideas is properly flattened, and as the film cannily demonstrates, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever”.