Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally (1972) User Reviews

Fascinating

[Nogerelli · 9/10 · 19 December 2005]

I just got a copy of this film. It's interesting to compare this to George Harrison's Concert For Bangledesh. They occurred only about four months apart but what a tremendous difference. Bangledesh was very slickly produced yet very warm with a many top performers on the bill. It was especially significant for being the first stage appearance for Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr for a long time. And all of this was done to raise funds for a starving country.

The Ten For Two on the other hand features John Lennon at his most polemic. The speakers in the rally, Father James Groppi, Bobby Seale and Jerry Rubin, are quite extreme and make some inflammatory statements (Groppi comparing Nixon to Hitler is a bit much to take). The music is a mixed bag too. It's obvious Allan Gingsberg can't sing, and I'm not sure about some of the minor acts like The Up either. A young Bob Segar plays a great version of "Carol" and there is a rare performance by Phil Ochs (several years before his suicide).

The whole interest in the film is John Lennon of course, and his set consists of four songs (three really with one Yoko song). He sounds very raw and unrehearsed, even reading the lyrics off of a music stand. But his charisma comes through very strong, being able to hold the entire arena by just his very presence. It's a shame this film has never been released and will probably never will be because it portrays the darker, paranoid side of the early seventies.

Awesome Time Capsule. Great Performances.

[jasonrose · 10/10 · 6 October 2005]

It's hard to believe that nobody has commented on this film yet. Ten For Two is one of the greatest concert films in my opinion--and a great time capsule of the era.

Here's the backstory: White Panther Party founder John Sinclair was unfairly sentenced to ten years in prison for getting caught with two joints. It was the consensus that he was a political prisoner persecuted for his radical views. This is a concert organized by John Lennon & Yoko Ono to rally support for his release.

There are a lot of clips from tremendous, (but rarely seen on film) cult artists such as the Up, Artie Shepp & Roswell Rudd, Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen, and David Peel & the Lower East Side.

Among the few big names on the bill are poet Allen Ginsburg, Phil Ochs (a rare later-period appearance; he does a great version of "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon"), Stevie Wonder (rarely have I seen him so politically radical as here; he does Sly Stone's "Somebody's Watching You" and dedicates it to the FBI), and of course, John & Yoko.

The most interesting aspect of the film, however, were the onstage sentiments of the performers and guest speakers (Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, and other luminaries made speeches between acts). The atmosphere at the event was ugly and paranoid. 1971 was a totally different time than today, and these folks were on edge, p*ssed off and scared. Both the counter-culture and the government thought that a full-out revolution would break out any day--and it's a miracle it didn't. They were paranoid & suspicious of the "the man" and vice-versa. These activists of 1971 weren't a bunch of hippies holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" anymore--they were armed soldiers preparing for civil war. The people were making speeches advocating total overthrow of the government, letting every prisoner out of jail, and more or less starting the country over from scratch. The Nixon-era regime took this kind of rhetoric to heart--and retaliated by putting them under surveillance, illegally tapping phone lines, and throwing tons of them in prison.

Ten For Two is an amazing document of an ugly and scary period in time. I haven't seen anything else quite like it.

Only problem is the movie's hard to get. Maybe one day, this great film will see a proper release.

Also, I should mention this: There's a happy ending. Three days after the event John Sinclair was released from jail. At the end there is a scene showing Sinclair exiting the prison gates and being reunited with his family.