Before Goldcrest, The Puttnam had his fingers in both Enigma Productions and the splendidly monickered Goodtimes Enterprises, the home of his early executive production forays. Music-related films were the order of the day, from the ace Performance through Alan Parker debut Melody (two kids want to get married to a Bee Gees soundtrack), bizarro fairy-tale reworking The Pied Piper (with Donovan in the title role!), David Essex rock star double-header That’ll Be the Day and Stardust, and the magisterial Slade in Flame. Also knocking about were Bugsy Malone and some of Ken Russell’s luridly boring composer biopics. Odd film out in the roster was silly, silly, camped-up Michael Moorcock adaptation The Final Programme, which didn’t star either Jack Wild or Roy Kinnear, and was thus doomed from the start.
