30 years since Stormy Monday
NEWCASTLE-SET MOVIE RELEASED 30 YEARS AGO
IT was 1987 and a juvenile jazz band was filmed marching down Newcastle’s Dean Street. The scene appeared in the crime movie Stormy Monday, which starred Sean Bean, American big-hitters Tommy Lee Jones and Melanie Griffith, and well-known local lad, Gordon Sumner – otherwise known as Sting.
The use of a jazz band, of course, echoed Get Carter, another famous gangster film shot in the North East 16 years earlier.
Released 30 years ago this week, Stormy Monday did have its moments, but would prove to be less enduring than its classic 1971 predecessor.
The name of the film derived from the signature song of American blues man T Bone Walker - Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad).
Sting plays Quayside jazz club owner Finney; future Sharpe star Bean takes on the role of his employee Brendan; Jones portrays crooked US property developer Cosmo who has designs on Finney’s club; and to stir things up, Cosmo’s former lover Kate, played by Griffith, falls in love with Bean’s character.
As in Get Carter, the dramatic backdrop of Newcastle was employed to good effect, and hundreds of local folk were used as extras .
Director Mike Figgis even cast wellknown Newcastle street photographer Jimmy Forsyth as a newspaper seller.
The Hollywood careers of Jones and Griffith had stalled in the mid-80s and Stormy Monday – released on April 22, 1988 – would give the pair a boost.
Indeed, this was the year Griffith also made the romantic comedy Working Girl, which grossed more than $100m at the box office, and for which she was nominated for an Oscar in the Best
Newcastle is so pretty and the people are great. I’m seriously considering buying a place here Melanie Griffith
Actress category.
The star, who rented a house in plush Darras Hall during the filming of Stormy Monday, told the Chronicle: “Newcastle is so pretty and the people are great. I am seriously considering buying a place here.
“It really is a wonderful city with all the old buildings. We just don’t have them in America.
“I have done a little sight-seeing and I want to drive to Durham to see the wonderful cathedral.”
The only problem for the 30-year-old New Yorkborn actress was the North East weather.
She said of one scene: “It was freezing cold and I just had a thin black dress on.
“I just couldn’t get warm and, to be honest, I think that’s the hardest thing I have had to do.” But 30 years after its release, how does Stormy Monday fare? The influential American film review website, Rotten Tomatoes, gives the film a 73% rating, and declares it a “tautly constructed, deftly executed crime thriller set in economically depressed Newcastle, England... “Former jazz musician Mike Figgis, who also wrote the script and composed the score, tells its story using subtle shadings of character and a vivid evocation of its Newcastle setting rather than through violent action.” It might be time to track down Stormy Monday on DVD for a fresh viewing.