Let’s Spend the Night Together

The 1982 Rolling Stones concert film Let’s Spend the Night Together is the movie that almost killed hard-partying director Hal Ashby, a job that would be finished by pancreatic cancer just six years later. There are stories that Ashby directed the Sun Devil Stadium shoot (they also shot indoors at New Jersey’s Meadowlands Arena) from a gurney, but luckily he had a great crew of cinematographers that included Oscar winner Caleb Deschanel. Whatever the chaos behind the scenes, Ashby’s take on the concert doc is refreshingly free of backstage antics and talking heads, instead capturing the actual experience of seeing a 24-song Rolling Stones set. This was the beginning of the Stones’ slide into greatest-hits concert-tour irrelevance, but the band is in fine form here, and the manic Jagger wears what appear to be selections from Jamie Lee Curtis’ Perfect wardrobe.