I remember around that time, Dynamite magazine (for kids) had a cover story on “Who is Better? The Bee Gees or the Beatles?” My parents were deeply offended by the very idea of posing the question. Fortunately, even Dynamite had to concede that nobody could surpass The Beatles.
I don’t recall if I managed to convince my parents to take me to the theater to see it, but I did catch it on cable a few times. I didn’t have the most discerning taste at age 9, but I remember thinking it was a bit of a train wreck, if at times bizarrely entertaining.
Michael Jackson had nothing to do with that. “Revolution” appeared in a Nike commercial because EMI, who own(ed) the Beatles’ actual recordings, licensed it. Subsequently the Beatles fought EMI and won back control over the exploitation of their master tapes.
I saw this in the theaters when it first came out. It was expected to be a very popular film. Hey, who hasn’t listened to a “concept album” (or, in this case, two of them) and thought “Hey, I bet there’s a movie to be made here!”? “Beatlemania” was a popular stage production at about the same time, and it featured surefire “popular with the kids” figures like Steve Martin, Aerosmith (who recorded the show’s only hit single, “Come Together”) and the still-somewhat-popular Peter Frampton. There were a lot of other “surefire” stinkfests coming out around the same time, like 1941. Really, the sheer awfulness of it caught even the most earnest Beatle fans by surprise. People laughed out loud when Strawberry Fields died. It was really that bad.
I actually brought a date to it. I got none that night.
I liked it so much at the time I saw it twice and actually professed to like the soundtrack more than the Beatles originals
In retrospect, it was grand & glorious late-70s indulgent excess & I gotta admit, when I found out last week the CD soundtrack & DVD movie were in print, I’ve been jones-ing to get them!
Now, imagine if the suggested plans for a Stigwood-produced EVITA starring Olivia Newton-John as Eva & John Travolta as Che had come to fruition!
I used to feel guilty about having liked this movie after having seen it on TV back in '85 when I was 15. Two mitigating factors:
I was dumb even by 15-year-old standards back then
I hadn’t yet listened to the original Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or gotten into the Beatles, so it was my first time hearing most of the songs.
I was mightily relieved when it came on again back in March and I Tivo’d it. I couldn’t even watch the whole damn thing, I hated it so much. I fast-forwarded it to the Steve Martin part, and then I even turned that off. I felt redeemed, like I had just killed a bear with my bare hands and been welcomed back into the world of men, except that I don’t think bears suck.
It’s better to just put it out of your mind. I saw it two months ago and I was staggered by the amount of inexplicable things in the movie. Why were there robots, and why (if you HAD to give a Beatles song to a robot that was incapable of singing with feeling) did they sing “She’s Leaving Home” and “Mean Mr. Mustard?” Was Billy Preston’s appearance meant to hint that Sgt. Pepper was Jesus or something? What was the deal with the stolen instruments?
While I can tell it’s not exactly a popular opinion, I actually enjoyed this movie.
Sure the music wasn’t as good as the Beatles’ original (could it have been?) and the concept was absurd, but that’s why it was entertaining. You just have to watch it with the same state of mind you’d use watching Plan 9 or any other B movie.
I actually went so far as to buy a copy on DVD after I caught SPLHCB on TV last month.
Aw, I love 1941. I think it’s fun and funny (and yes, bizarre), and it has great music. I’ve never thought that Speilberg had anything to be ashamed of regarding that movie.
Slut.
I didn’t see it. I did, however, go on a trip from Philly to New York City to see Beatlemania and was completely overwhelmed by it. It was perfect for kids my age, who were a bit young for the energy and intensity the first time around, and yet were extremely well-versed in the music.
Grrrrrrowl! Even at the prehormonal age of 7, I would get super excited whenever she walked on screen in Annie. 13 years later I saw her in Chicago and had the same reaction (but with dirtier thoughts)- and in Chicago she had some serious competition in the sensual form of Bebe Neuwirth, but I had no problem fantasizing about both of them at the same time.
(And in Annie she shared the screen with Bernadette Peters- oh, yes, let’s also entertain the fantasy of that coupling!)
I went with a group to see it at a dollar theatre and left before the fourth song ( I found it unbearably bad).
Years later I was at a friends house and it was on HBO and I decided to try to watch it – couldn’t do it. It lives on a level of bad that few things know, like Tom Jones impersonators or punk rock wannabes.
I still think they owe me twice my money back.
(Though I admit to really liking “Come Together” by Arrowsmith).
I loathe you. Now you’ve made me remember my Dynamite magazine subscription, which I’ve successfully repressed for 26 years. DIdn’t that issue also have a cardboard 45 of “Disco Dynamite”?
Well. Hmmm. I do not remember seeing all of SPLHCB, but I did attend a performance of Beatlemania on Broadway during it’s first year or so.
As I said, for those of us who were a bit young to really experience it as it happened, but lived with older sibs/family/friends who DID experience it and so yearned to, who heard the songs released for the first time when we were in elementary school, the show had serious impact.
The visuals were extensive and brilliantly produced, the music was spot-on. I felt as though I’d been given an exciting window back on a time that I could not quite grasp, and was then old enough to grasp it. ( Vietnam, Counter Revolution, Free Love, etc. )
From what I DO remember of SPLHCB, it was an abomination of modern-day filmmaking. Plan 9 From Outer Space was brilliant by compare.
