Trivia

Sting and his band The Police were little known when the film was shot, but had broken out by the time it was released.

When director Franc Roddam first met Pete Townshend, Townshend brought with him tapes of orchestral arrangements of the score that he had produced, assuming that the film would be made in the style of a 'rock opera' in the same way Ken Russell had made Tommy (1975). Roddam explained he wanted to do the complete opposite and make it much more realistic in tone and style, although the score would still, obviously be very prominent and important on the soundtrack. Townshend put the tapes away and never mentioned them again.

John Lydon (the former Johnny Rotten) was originally approached for the role of Jimmy and even screen-tested for the role. However, the distributors refused to insure him for the role and he was replaced.

During a 40th anniversary cast reunion, Trevor Laird who played Ferdy recalled that on the day that the house party scenes were due to be shot, he arrived on set only to be approached by producer John Peverall carrying a bottle of champagne (he had just won an Oscar for producing The Deer Hunter (1978)). Peverall told him he wasn't needed for these scenes and to stand down and go and have a drink with Phil Davis, who also wasn't in the scenes. An angry Franc Roddam confronted Peverall telling him it wasn't his job to discuss such matters with the cast. A clearly embarrassed Roddam then admitted to Laird he had been dropped from the scenes for commercial reasons, as the film was going to be seen in the southern states of the U.S.A. and South Africa and those audiences wouldn't accept or tolerate a black man being around or intimate with white girls.

The pinball machine that Jimmy (Phil Daniels) plays is Buckaroo manufactured by Gottlieb 1965. This is the same machine played by Elton John in Tommy (1975).