Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Am I the only one who liked this movie? After hearing nothing but bad press about it for years, I finally went out and saw it. I thought it was one of the most fun flicks I'd seen in years. All the characters were named after Beatles songs! Starring Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) and the Hendersons (the Bee Gees) "were all there" as well, "Sgt. Pepper" featured Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina) as Billy's leading lady, and Mr. Mustard (Frank Howerd) was "such a mean old man." Let's not forget Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Dianne Steinberg), the Sun King (Alice Cooper), and Sgt. Pepper played by an old Beatles protege (Billy Preston). The movie also depicted countless cover versions of Beatles songs, including Earth Wind & Fire's "Got to Get You Into My Life." As the narrator, Mr. Kite (George Burns) even covered "Fixin' a Hole." Critics of the movie should be so critical"when they're 64," let alone 82! Sure, the plot wasn't worthy of a Kubrick screenplay, but what could be more accurate than explaining how corporatism is anathema to the fun of music, and how profound an impact the Beatles had on later artists. Look for Dame Edna (Barry Humphries) in one of the many crowd scenes. I have one final case for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." It had one of my favourite comedians (Steve Martin) singing one of my favourite Beatles songs (Maxwell's Silver Hammer). I'm picking out a thermos for this movie!

Time & death has a funny way of smoothing over harsh criticism. What was deemed a colossal egg upon its release, certainly hated by discophobes and Beatles purists for its sacrilege back in the late 70s, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has since become a historical document on its own. Only 35 years later and after the deaths of 3 Bee Gees are we beginning to chill on our Bee Gees hatred and give this monumental group its due. If you watch this movie not as a Beatles tribute but perhaps as a wacky Bee Gees tribute, you'll enjoy yourself. This movie is a forgotten landmark of the 70s.

The Bee Gees are known for their disco hits like "Stayin Alive" and such, but did you know that in the 60s they were a moderately successful psychedelic rock band quite similar to the Beatles? With that in mind, it's not so far fetched to imagine them playing Beatles music, and in fact they do a pretty good job if you can dump all preconceptions. The opening numbers "Sgt. Pepper" and "A Little Help from my Friends" (with Peter Frampton singing) kick the movie off nicely. I thought the best tune was "Nowhere Man" with their silky smooth harmonies. And where else are you going to hear basically the entire Sgt. Peppers & Abbey Road albums in a movie, Beatles or otherwise? Where this movie sags is in the fact that it's barely a movie. It's more like a string of campy music videos loosely stuck together with a somewhat vapid plot. But hey, aren't a lot of musicals like that?

The plot revolves the Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Next Generation, 20 years after the original horn blowers left the stage. Now amped up and rockified, the new band tops the charts and is lured away from its hometown to LA with a record deal while an evil villain "Mr. Mustard" takes over their hometown and turns it into a city of sleaze. Mr. Mustard answers to an even eviller entity known as "F.V.B." (the meaning revealed only at the end). What follows is a very flimsy chain of events, each represented by a Beatles song. There is no dialogue in this film; it's all music.

Production values are high, and you can expect to see some impressive sets, scenery & costumes as well as decent cinematography. In other words, it's not a cheap production. The style is very tongue-in-cheek, much like The Who's musical "Tommy" released 3 years prior. In fact I had to check to see if both films were directed or produced by the same people. They weren't. But if you were entertained by "Tommy" you'll probably get a kick out of this as well.

I recommend getting acquainted with the Bee Gees before watching this movie. There's a good documentary called "The Bee Gees: In Our Own Time" which might open your eyes and prep you for a better experience if you decide to watch this. Only now, decades after the fall of disco and with only 1 Bee Gee still living, the band is finally getting some respectful treatment. Love em or hate em, you gotta admit they took the world by storm for a brief moment in music history.

Notable guest musicians Earth Wind & Fire, Peter Frampton, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, and a hilariously bizarre appearance by fancy-footed soul singer Billy Preston shooting laser beams of love from his fingertips round out this one-of-a-kind experience (Billy played electric piano on the Beatles' original "Get Back" which he sings here). I like to keep this DVD playing at loud volumes while I'm doing household chores to keep me moving. It may scare off some visitors, but then who needs em?

A Beatles fan all my life and this was a pleasant surprise as I had avoided it over the years as being pastiche cliched crap, but hey, life is full of surprises. And I like it. Just shows that brilliant music can make a mediocre story look good. Never the other way around. Bee Gees and Frampton were good choices.

This was considered one of the biggest cinematic disasters of its era---a film that virtually destroyed the careers of the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, and recording mogul Robert Stigwood (a giant at the time) likewise disappeared from view. Thirty years later, there are no less than 13 pages (so far) of blistering denunciations of this movie here at IMDb.

I have never understood any of this. I had a good time with the film when I was young, and in later years, it still held up for me. It certainly is no classic, but if you are willing to relax and meet it halfway, you might find yourself having a good time. It is fun watching people like Steve Martin, Frankie Howerd, and Donald Pleasence hamming it up, and George Burns is always enjoyable.

Once, I said all of this to an acquaintance in person, and his response was: "Why would I want to hear Beatles songs if the Beatles aren't doing them?" Herein lies the film's problem, I think. Fans of the Beatles consider their music to be untouchable---very few artists have tried to do covers of Beatles songs, and the few who have met with hostility. Fans of the "fab four" carry a lot of weight, and they consider covers of the music to be nothing less than blasphemy. Consequently, when this innocuous film came out, they went on the attack and never let up.

Come on, lighten up! It is a fun, innocent little film.

In 1978, when I was 12 years old, we were living in Moscow, while my father was stationed at the Canadian Embassy. To escape the "fun" of living behind the Iron Curtain, we routinely took the Moscow-Helsinki express and travelled around Scandinavia. Our trip always ended at this huge department store in Helsinki, where we'd order all our non-perishable groceries until our next trip. My brother and I were allowed to purchase one record apiece to take back with us.

So one time, I picked up the soundtrack to this film. I don't think the movie had been released yet. Goodness knows, I didn't know that the movie was going to be a howler. All I know is that I loved the soundtrack. I listened to it over and over, and pored over the photographs on the album cover, trying to get a sense of the movie.

A few years later, I read "The Golden Turkey Awards" and then I started to realize how bad the movie was. I didn't get my chance to see it until 1997. Oh, it stunk! Cheese everywhere, from the awkward love story to the campy antics of the villain and his robots.

And yet, I watch it every time it comes on TV. Finally, I have the movie to go with the soundtrack. And let's face it - I love cheesy movies.