ABBA: The Movie
ABBA: The Movie is a 1977 mockumentary about the Swedish pop group ABBA's Australian tour. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, who directed most of the group's videos. The film has become a cult film among ABBA fans. Its release coincided with the release of "", the group's fifth studio album, and features many songs from that album as well as many of their earlier hits, and one, "Get on the Carousel", unavailable anywhere else. Plot. The film concerns the adventures of Ashley Wallace (Robert Hughes), a naïve DJ on Radio 2TW, who normally presents  a through-the-night country and western-themed show. In spite of this, he is sent by the station's boss (Bruce Barry) to get an in-depth interview ("Not an interview, a "dialogue"", demands his boss) with the group, which is to be aired on the day ABBA leave Australia. Ashley, who has never done an interview before, fails, mainly because he has forgotten to pack his press card, although the fact that he is unable to buy a concert ticket doesn't help matters. Armed with his trusty reel-to-reel tape recorder, Ashley is forced to follow  the group all over Australia, beginning in Sydney, and then travelling, in order, to Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne, experiencing repeated run-ins with the group's very protective bodyguard (Tom Oliver), as well as his increasingly exasperated boss. Throughout the movie, we see Ashley interviewing members of the public, asking them if and why they like ABBA. Almost all the comments are positive, but one man is driven mad by his ABBA-obsessed twelve-year-old son, and another girl thinks ABBA are over the top. Eventually, Ashley has a lucky chance encounter with Stig Anderson, the group's manager , in the foyer of ABBA's hotel, who agrees to arrange an interview, and gives him tickets to that evening's concert. But Ashley sleeps in and misses the interview time. Just as he has given up hope, he finds himself face-to-face with ABBA in an elevator. They give him an interview there and then, and he leaves Melbourne just in time to meet the deadline for the radio show to go on-air. He puts together the final edit in the back of a taxi from the airport, as ABBA depart Australia for Europe. With only minutes  to go, Ashley makes it back to the radio station where, having set the tape up on the studio's playback machine, he relaxes at his control desk to listen as the interview is broadcast. Production. Hallström indicated that the film's script and plot concept was "conceived on the plane on the way to Australia". Initially, 16 mm film was to be used but producers upgraded the project to 35 mm Panavision technology. Mostly filmed in Australia some additional scenes were filmed in ABBA's native Sweden (but still set in Australia)—noticeably different from Australia. Reception. Margaret Geddes of  Australian newspaper "The Age" concluded that the film was "slick, competent and even for the non-convert entertaining." Release. "ABBA: The Movie" was first released in December 1977. The film was presented in several Eastern Bloc nations, including the Soviet Union where it was screened at two movie houses in Moscow. Home media. To date four releases of the film have been made: a single-disc DVD, a two-disc, special-edition DVD, a single-disc Blu-ray, and a now-defunct single-disc HD DVD. All releases above feature a restored print with bonus material. The initial DVD, including  digital restoration, was released by SBS in Australia on 2 October 2005. Re-releases. A theatrical re-release occurred across Europe during July and August 2008 (the same period as the ABBA-themed movie musical "Mamma Mia!" first hit American theaters) in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany and Austria. On 12 and 14 May 2022, the film will see a theatrical re-release for the group's 50th anniversary. It will be its first wide release in North America.