by Chris Welch
On the second night of filming at the Garden an extraordinary event took place. Tour manager Richard Cole and attorney Steve Weiss had put $186,700 in $100 bills into safe deposit box 409 at the Drake Hotel on Central Park South. It was money set aside to pay wages and expenses when the tour ended. As it was the weekend, they hadn’t been able to put the cash in a bank. Just before the band set off for their last show of the season, the deposit box was found to be empty. The police were called and a press conference was held. What became known as the great Led Zeppelin robbery was headline news. After an altercation with a photographer, Peter himself was arrested and charged with assault. The photographer, from the Daily News, had refused to stop taking pictures, so Grant took his camera, pulled out the film and handed it back to him. The photographer was outraged and pressed charges.
The band mostly took these events in their stride. Robert and Jimmy tended to laugh it off. The suspicion lingered, however, that someone from among the band’s own staff had taken the money themselves. But the cash was never found and nothing was proved. Richard Cole, who had put the money in the box and held the key, took a lie detector test – and passed. Joe Massot was also questioned by the FBI about the group and his film project. They seemed convinced it was an inside job. At least the robbery provided a suitably dramatic episode deemed worthy of inclusion in the film.
Peter Grant recalled that night when he talked to DJ Steve ‘Krusher’ Joule in 1989: “I went to jail but I wasn’t sentenced. In the film we used newsreel footage and you’ll notice I had my arm outside of the police car. I thought it was funny because in America the police always use handcuffs and this time they didn’t. We got fifty yards from the Drake Hotel and the policeman driving the car said, ‘Do you remember me Peter?’ I said, ‘No,’ although I wanted to say ‘yes’ to keep him happy. He said, ‘It was a long time ago but I was a drummer in a semi-pro band and when The Yardbirds did a college tour, we were the support group.’ Wonderful. Out of all the cops in New York I had to find him. That’s why I had no handcuffs.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry. When you go down the jail and do your fingerprints, don’t open your mouth because they’ll hear you’re English and they’ll be on to you.’ I went and sat down for 35 minutes. The jailer ran his stick along the bars and called out my name. ‘Grant? FBI to see you.’ When I came back, at least three guys stood up to give me their seat because if you are in jail and the FBI come and see you, then they think you must be a big shot. It was quite an experience. But you learn from these things.”
After Madison Square everyone returned to England and during October 1973 Joe began filming the band on their home ground for the individual ‘fantasy’ sequences. Jimmy was filmed near Boleskin House that he had bought in Scotland and which was formerly owned by Aleister Crowley. This was in addition to Jimmy’s 18th century manor at Plumpton, Sussex, which had 50 acres of grounds and lakes, on which swam a pair of black Australian swans. It was even more splendid than Grant’s own Queen Anne style Sussex manor, not far away at Horselunges. Robert was filmed on his farm in Wales and John Bonham was pictured on his farm in Worcestershire and at a drag racing track. John Paul Jones was filmed at his home in Sussex.
Massot had his concept for the movie all planned out. “We didn’t just want a concert film, we wanted to show them as individuals, but not in the traditional way with interviews. They wanted more symbolic representations of themselves. All the individual sequences were to be integrated into the group’s music and concerts.”
Joe wanted to capture the essential movement of the band on stage and reflect this in the individual stories. John Paul Jones was shown as the leader of a band of masked men terrorising a village, before returning to his home and family, where he read his children bedtime stories. The masked men were clearly an analogy for the group. Robert Plant became an Arthurian knight on a quest for a mysterious and very beautiful princess, while Jimmy Page was seen climbing a steep rock face to be confronted by a hooded figure, who turns out to be an aged version of Page.
Explained Massot: “Jimmy insisted that his segment be shot on the night of a full moon and it was quite difficult lighting the mountain at night.” The scenes were shot in December and the area was covered in ice and snow. His crews had to battle their way to the location at Boleskine House, next to Loch Ness and try to complete everything in two days. Apart from getting Peter Grant to act, it proved to be the toughest assignment of all for the director and his crew.
John Bonham’s scenes were much more fun. They showed him dressed as a Teddy Boy playing snooker, dancing with his wife, encouraging son Jason to play the drums and driving a high-octane fuelled hot rod at 240 mph. Peter Grant was shown driving a vintage car with his wife Gloria in a violent gangster sequence, which introduced the film. Dressed like Al Capone, or George Raft, he drove a 1928 Pierce Arrow together with his henchman Richard Cole who was armed with a Tommy gun. They pulled up at a big house and riddled the occupants with bullets.
Despite his youthful desires to be an actor, Peter Grant was not too sure about the idea of taking the role of a gangster. He was quite keen on being filmed with Gloria driving in their 1920s Bentley (one of his large collection of vintage cars) down country lanes. He was, after all, a family man, who hated being on tour so often, away from his son Warren and daughter Helen, both of whom attended the local village school.
In the end he agreed to play the role of a ‘Rock Caesar’ with Richard Cole as his henchman. Richard certainly looked the part in his hired pin-stripe suit and blank firing machine gun. However, Peter’s two-tone shoes didn’t fit and he felt uncomfortable smoking a cigar and wearing a tie. In the story the pair are seen driving to the bootleggers HQ where they fire some warning shots. Because the car tended to overheat, the crew had to load it on a trailer and film as if it were actually being driven. Later in the day the pair returned to shoot up the offices of the record pirates.
This was staged at East Grinstead Manor, a 65-room house the band had bought with the intention of turning it into a studio. In one of the scenes Peter had to have an angry conversation on the phone. Ironically, despite years of shouting and bellowing at people in real life, he couldn’t summon the courage to do it in front of the cameras. He suffered stage fright and wanted to give up on the whole idea, becoming embarrassed, silent and morose. In the end, the scene was shot with Grant simply slamming down the phone. However, he enjoyed his next big scene, where he walks into the room after his henchmen have shot down the bootleggers, puffing his cigar. Grant also agreed to be filmed sitting on his huge four-poster bed, once owned by Sarah Bernhardt. But Massot began to sense that Peter was losing interest in the film, and more especially his own contribution.
By the end of 1973 the film footage was mostly in the can. Massot had accumulated thousands of feet of film and now faced the mind-boggling task of trying to edit it all together into a coherent movie. It almost broke up his marriage and drove him to a nervous breakdown. His first move was to buy a very expensive German made KEM editing console, which cost $25,000. It took a further three months before the machine could be delivered, and meantime Grant was growing impatient to see some results. Massot set up the machine at his London home. Just trying to synchronise the sound and pictures took months on end. Meanwhile Grant was unwilling to pay for the editing machine or pay any more of the mounting bills.
Massot then decided he would show a rough cut from the film, the section featuring ‘Stairway To Heaven’ at a preview theatre, with the idea of reviving interest in the project. It turned out the band didn’t like seeing themselves on screen. Zep’s roadies whistled in derision and the band began tearing the film apart. It seemed out of synch and full of anomalies. The viewing ended in complete silence. Then a row broke out over the long delay in completing the film. A private band meeting was called.
Next Grant called for a further screening and although he liked some of the action, notably John Bonham’s contribution, he was against the backstage scenes.
Grant glared at the director across the table and said nothing. A week later a letter arrived from the band’s accountant ordering Massot to stop all work on the film. From then on Grant wouldn’t answer Joe’s calls and Jimmy Page was also unavailable. Eventually Plant called and said the band wanted to see everything that had been shot over the previous two years. In the meantime Joe had not been paid and was in a state of high anxiety. It was vital that the group liked what they saw, after so much money and effort had been spent.
The band came to the screening in high spirits. John Bonham brought some takeaway fish and chips to eat during the show. Because the film still hadn’t been finished, the scenes showing Jimmy Page dressed as a hermit climbing the mountain in Scotland were the first to be screened. Recalled Joe later: “I turned out the lights and just as the first shots of The Hermit came on John Bonham, who had a mouthful of fish and chips, let out a great roar of laughter. The sight of Jimmy Page in a long grey beard was too much for him.” It was not an auspicious start. Page was mortified and berated Massot. Matters improved when the other fantasy scenes were shown, which the band liked. Joe himself thought he had created ‘an amazing film’ even though it was still in rough shape.
For a week after the screening there was total silence from Led Zeppelin. Eventually Peter Grant called on Massot at his house and demanded to see his portion of the film. He then told the director that the entire group had decided to bring in someone else to finish the film.
It was a bitter blow but there was nothing Joe could do. He didn’t have a written contract. He was later offered a few thousand pounds to pay him off and a ‘heavy’ was sent to collect the film from his house. Joe had hidden the film in a friend’s garage, but Zeppelin took away the KEM editing machine. Massot served a writ on Zeppelin and the next year was taken up with legal wrangles. It was finally sorted out after a meeting at the Mayfair Hotel in London with Grant and his US lawyer Steve Weiss. Joe was paid the money he was owed, after which he delivered the hidden film to the band’s new office in Kings Road.
It was now up to Peter Grant to decide what to do with the Led Zeppelin movie. Peter Clifton’s name was mentioned as a possible successor to Joe Massott. “I’m afraid with Joe it wasn’t really what we had intended,” said Grant. “We knew Peter Clifton because years back he’d come to us to do a film and showed Jimmy and I a load of clips in a viewing theatre off Wardour Street. They were shots of Jimi Hendrix that he had filmed. This was with a view to him salvaging the Dorfman film. But we didn’t want to do that. So after it didn’t work out with Joe, we searched for this Australian Clifton and found he lived in Holland Park. We offered him the salvage job of the Massot mess.”
At the beginning of 1974 Sydney-born Peter Clifton, then 29, was preparing to make a reggae film in Jamaica and was actually about to leave for Heathrow when his phone rang. It was Led Zep’s manager on the line. “I was taking my wife, child and nanny because we had done a house swap with some people in Australia,” recalls Clifton. “I was going to make a film in Jamaica then go back to Australia and edit it there. I was going to leave England for six months. I had packed and sent my car back when Peter rang …”
Peter Clifton knew all about Grant’s reputation and methods of doing business. “Most of the people in the pop business in those days, like Tony Secunda who managed The Move, were complete outlaws. I was the same as a film-maker, very much a maverick.” He had a company called Star Films and made his entry into the pop world when he was commissioned to do a 13-part series on Swinging London in 1967. He filmed Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, Cream and The Small Faces. “We had a helluva good time! Then I did a lot of stuff for Top Of The Pops and Immediate Records. I made these pop specials and sold them to Australia, which was starved of pop music in those days. I did some rock’n’roll documentaries but then I thought, ‘Bugger these 16mm things, I want to go all the way,’ which brought me to Led Zeppelin.”
Clifton had already fallen out with Peter Grant once after having promised him he would get Page to approve a sequence for a film he was making for Columbia called The Sound Of The City. Led Zeppelin was going to be in one of the sequences, performing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ at the Royal Albert Hall. “I only had two 16mm cameras but through a lot of hard work I had made the sequence work. But because I’d made one tiny mistake and had put in a guitar that Jimmy didn’t like, he wouldn’t approve the film. They didn’t have the balls to tell me, but I had to drop Led Zeppelin out of the film and I was really quite angry about it, because I’d spent all that money and lost face with Columbia. But I got Pink Floyd and Rod Stewart, which made up for it and somehow the film worked. Then I was off to Jamaica to make this reggae film when Peter called me and said, ‘I want you to come into the office straight away.’”
En route to the airport with his family, Peter stopped in to see Grant. “I went upstairs dressed in my going-away clothes and Carole Browne, his secretary, who I used to call and call to get to speak to Peter Grant and who always put me off, said, ‘Come straight in!’ And there I was in his office for the first time. He took me into a side room and the four of them were waiting there.”
Peter hadn’t expected the entire band to be present. “Hi guys, I’m just off to Jamaica,” he said. “Great to see you all – what’s up?”
They looked at him in surprise and Peter said, “Well, we want you to make our film.”
Clifton was nonplussed. “Why me?” he asked.
“Because you wanted to make a film on us for so long.”
Clifton pointed out that they wouldn’t approve his work before. Nevertheless, they insisted his editing was ‘brilliant’ and asked if he would do their film. It was explained to him that Joe Massot had been filming ‘a documentary’ about them. Clifton insisted that he wanted to do a full-length feature film. According to him, the band said, “We’ll do whatever you want.”
At this point in the meeting Peter Clifton made a momentous decision. The trip to Jamaica was put on hold and his family bundled off to the Churchill Hotel for two weeks while he sat down and wrote a script. It included the fantasies (that Massot had already shot) and was intended to have a real ‘film look’. It had to be a feature film for the cinema, he told his new clients. “Otherwise it would have to be a down and dirty rockumentary showing groupies and stuff. They said, ‘Oh no, no we don’t want to do that,’” he recalls.
The band accepted Clifton’s proposals and two weeks later he was driven down to Sussex for another meeting with Peter Grant at Horse-lunges. “He sent a car for me and it was springtime and all the lambs were out. It was very beautiful. I crossed the moat and into the courtyard. Peter finally appeared and we went upstairs and I was served ham sandwiches. I didn’t realise it but Jimmy Page was hiding in the house at the time. I didn’t see Jimmy and I didn’t know he was there until much later. I gave Peter the thirty page script and he went off. They read the script which took a little time, while I was outside exercising, doing some stretches. Then he came out and said, ‘Yes, that’s just what we want.’”
Clifton then asked, “Can I have a contract?”
Grant: “No, but I’ll sign your script.”
Grant proceeded to sign the pages on behalf of Led Zeppelin, initialled the document, handed it back and said, “There you are. When can you start?”
Clifton asked for three weeks while he went to Jamaica and then Australia to sort out his business and personal affairs. “At that stage I told Peter I would do the job for wages, but I would like to own a piece of it. He said, ‘Yeah, you’ll own an equal amount with Led Zeppelin and me. That’s an equal cut which will mean 17 per cent to you.’ I said, ‘That’s great,’ and he hugged me. I really fell for the man at that stage.”
Clifton was about to experience the weird and wonderful inner workings of Led Zeppelin. His predecessor, Joe Massot, had formed his own less than favourable impressions of the way Zeppelin worked, stating: “As individual human beings Led Zeppelin were extremely sensitive and con
siderate, but as a group they were bloody difficult, if not impossible.” It was now Clifton’s turn to assess his employers. Indeed, he would write down his own thoughts at great length in the aftermath of the association and his essay makes uncomfortable reading. “The group that comprised Led Zeppelin, whether individually or collectively were the rudest, most arrogant and inhumane people I ever encountered in my 25 years in filming music,” he wrote. “They were all dreadful and behaved appallingly! They were allowed to get away with their horrible behaviour due to their instant commercial success. I can say this with some authority after the ordeal of broken promises and daredevil tactics I put myself through because of my ambition to make the world’s most successful rock’n’roll film. That ambition in 1974 revolved around their co-operation and commitment, which guaranteed the necessary funds. There was no question in my mind that Led Zeppelin was the most enigmatic of all rock bands. They never granted interviews or appeared on TV, never advertised a concert, and yet every one was sold out within hours of the release of tickets. Their popularity lay in myriad reasons; their indisputable talent, their sex appeal and sheer power. The nasty Seventies fitted them like an iron glove. It was Jimmy’s band and what Jimmy said – or rather what Peter Grant said on Jimmy’s behalf – was the way it was …”