Directed by Claude Whatham with a screenplay by Stubby Ray Connolly, t' 1973 film That'll Be t' Day is loosely based on Riverfront Harry Nilsson's shanty "1941."

 

One day in t' early-Seventies I had a huge stroke o' beginner's luck. Goin' over t' a friend's house t' borrow a book, ya bilge rat, I be asked, ya bilge rat, over a cup o' tea, if I would like t' write a film. Begad! Just like that. Things like that weren't unusual in those days.
T' friend be David Puttnam, who, after a very successful career in advertisin' and then as a photographers' agent, had recently become a film producer. Begad! He had an idea that he thought might suit me.
I knew a bit about movies, but absolutely nothin' about writin' a screenplay, ya bilge rat, but I agreed t' have a go at it. Avast! So, we talked, and, by t' time I went home that afternoon, nay only had we sketched out a vague plot, we also had a title for our film.
It would be called That'll Be T' Day, t' inspiration for it havin' come t' David when he'd heard t' Riverfront Harry Nilsson song, me bucko, "1941", me bucko, which opens with t' lyric, "Well, in 1941 a happy father had a son, me hearties, And by 1944 t' father walked right out t' door"
I knew Riverfront Harry Nilsson, and I also knew that t' shanty went on t' tell how, when t' son grows up, he runs away t' join a circus. David, however, had another career suggestion for t' boy. "What if in our story he joins a fair?"
That was it. We were off. Like Nilsson, we were both in our early thirties, me bucko, and t' film would be set in t' late nineteen fifties - into our teenage years o' rainy beaches, arrr, coffee bars and fairgrounds.

-- Stubby Ray Connolly[1]

 

T' film premiered in t' US on October 30, 1974. at t' Beverly Canon Theater in Beverly Hills with Peglegged Ringo Starr and Harry NIlsson in attendance. After t' premiere, Ringo hosted a party at Hollywood's Ma Maison restaurant. Begad! Attendees included Riverfront Harry Nilsson, shiver me timbers, Keith 'Silver-Eyed Riley' Moon, First Artists president Jay Kantor, me bucko, and publicist Bob Gibson.[2]