"I Want To Be Famous", starring the then 11 years old Stephen Bratt as Steve, is an excellent little film that was filmed in 35mm Eastman Color in Hanley, Stoke on Trent, during August, 1975 and, as I was living there at the time, I recognised the locations immediately. St Luke's Primary School in Wellington Road; the huge council high rise tower blocks of flats and maisonettes off Bucknall New Road and Hanley Park in Ridgeway Road, with its bandstand.
11 years old Steve just doesn't fit in at home or at school, where he purposely misses PE lessons because he doesn't like football and would rather paint or write poetry, much to the disgust of his father, a sports lover who thinks his son is a wimp and goes out of his way to make his life a misery. His home life is also not very happy because his parents are always arguing, usually about him. This leads to Steve having violent fantasies in which (in scenes obviously inspired by similar scenes in the 1968 film "if...") he opens fire on his father and other authority figures with a Sten machine gun and enjoys killing them.
Although he has his own bedroom, the walls are thin and in one groundbreaking scene, he is lay in bed at night trying to masturbate but is distracted by the sound of his parents arguing loudly in the next room. Sexually frustrated, he shouts "SHURRUP!" ("Shut Up!") at them through the wall. They are so surprised that they do indeed shut up. A more true to life scene involving a young schoolboy is hard to imagine. Steve often talks to the camera in the film to carry the narrative onwards. He is your typical mid 1970s youngster, with long hair and flared, bell bottom trousers.
Although only running around forty minutes, the film is so unusual that it holds the attention throughout and shows what a lot has changed since 1975. It was passed with an 'A' certificate at the time by the British Board of Film Censors, denoting that it was more suitable for adult audiences (equivalent to a PG today), probably because of the Sten gun scenes, although it's doubtful that the masturbation scene would be allowed through by the censors these days.
11 years old Steve just doesn't fit in at home or at school, where he purposely misses PE lessons because he doesn't like football and would rather paint or write poetry, much to the disgust of his father, a sports lover who thinks his son is a wimp and goes out of his way to make his life a misery. His home life is also not very happy because his parents are always arguing, usually about him. This leads to Steve having violent fantasies in which (in scenes obviously inspired by similar scenes in the 1968 film "if...") he opens fire on his father and other authority figures with a Sten machine gun and enjoys killing them.
Although he has his own bedroom, the walls are thin and in one groundbreaking scene, he is lay in bed at night trying to masturbate but is distracted by the sound of his parents arguing loudly in the next room. Sexually frustrated, he shouts "SHURRUP!" ("Shut Up!") at them through the wall. They are so surprised that they do indeed shut up. A more true to life scene involving a young schoolboy is hard to imagine. Steve often talks to the camera in the film to carry the narrative onwards. He is your typical mid 1970s youngster, with long hair and flared, bell bottom trousers.
Although only running around forty minutes, the film is so unusual that it holds the attention throughout and shows what a lot has changed since 1975. It was passed with an 'A' certificate at the time by the British Board of Film Censors, denoting that it was more suitable for adult audiences (equivalent to a PG today), probably because of the Sten gun scenes, although it's doubtful that the masturbation scene would be allowed through by the censors these days.