Robert Stigwood had it all in 1978. He had great success with such pictures as Jesus Christ SUPERSTAR, TOMMY, Saturday NIGHT FEVER and GREASE. Then he decided to take on The Beatles SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND. His career has never fully recovered.
SPLHCB is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Without a storyline to work with, Stigwood hired writers to string together a bunch of unrelated songs from the album (as well as many songs which do not appear on the album) into a coherent story. The result is so awful, it really must be seen to be believed.
The movie takes place in the town of Heartland. Basically, it's about a trio of brothers ("The Hendersons," played by The Bee Gees) who are asked to take over the town's festivities when Sgt. Pepper dies in mid performance. Aiding them is "Billy Shears," played by Peter Frampton. With help from "Mr. Kite," played by George Burns, they must thwart the evil activities of record producers and crooked real estate developers who want to take over Heartland.
Billy gets involved in a romance with "Strawberry Fields," they battle villains such as "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Maxwell Edison," and that's only the tip of the iceberg of desperate (and asinine) Beatles references. As Maxwell Edison, Steve Martin turns in the worst performance of his career, stumbling through "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and looking uncomfortably clueless as to how to make it appear that the song has anything to do with what's happening in the scene.
Other guest stars crash and burn in similarly nonsensical performances. Alice Cooper, Donald Pleasence and Billy Preston all show up and embarrass themselves. Watching George Burns and two obnoxious little girls maul "Fixing a Hole" is one of the lowest points in motion picture history. Even Ed Wood never committed to film a sequence so abysmal.
Only Aerosmith, who briefly bring the movie roaring to life with a knock-out performance of "Come Together," survive this train wreck completely unscathed. Not that there aren't a few other good points to it. The Bee Gees' and Frampton's renditions of Beatles classics really aren't all that bad, Earth, Wind & Fire does a catchy cover of "Got to Get You Into My Life," Paul Nicholas (from Ken Russell's TOMMY and LISZTOMANIA) is entertaining as Frampton's conniving cousin and Dianne Steinberg is sexy as Lucy (and does a surprisingly good disco take on "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds").
As decent as the music is, the ridiculous attempts to incorporate these songs into scenes which have little or nothing to do with the lyrics is often unintentionally hilarious, and sometimes downright bizarre. A scene in which Strawberry Fields tends to Billy Shears while singing "Strawberry Fields Forever" inadvertently comes off as an invitation to perform oral sex on her ("Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields..."). This oddball list of ingredients creates a cinematic disaster that is so astonishing and so mind-bogglingly ill-advised, it is genuinely fascinating to behold. It's like a musical PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE for the 70s.
SPLHCB is a favorite among bad movie buffs, though the movie itself has a loyal (albeit small) cult following. Stigwood followed this with such garbage as GREASE 2 and STAYING ALIVE. He had a mini comeback with EVITA, but otherwise his career is pretty much over.
SPLHCB is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Without a storyline to work with, Stigwood hired writers to string together a bunch of unrelated songs from the album (as well as many songs which do not appear on the album) into a coherent story. The result is so awful, it really must be seen to be believed.
The movie takes place in the town of Heartland. Basically, it's about a trio of brothers ("The Hendersons," played by The Bee Gees) who are asked to take over the town's festivities when Sgt. Pepper dies in mid performance. Aiding them is "Billy Shears," played by Peter Frampton. With help from "Mr. Kite," played by George Burns, they must thwart the evil activities of record producers and crooked real estate developers who want to take over Heartland.
Billy gets involved in a romance with "Strawberry Fields," they battle villains such as "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Maxwell Edison," and that's only the tip of the iceberg of desperate (and asinine) Beatles references. As Maxwell Edison, Steve Martin turns in the worst performance of his career, stumbling through "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and looking uncomfortably clueless as to how to make it appear that the song has anything to do with what's happening in the scene.
Other guest stars crash and burn in similarly nonsensical performances. Alice Cooper, Donald Pleasence and Billy Preston all show up and embarrass themselves. Watching George Burns and two obnoxious little girls maul "Fixing a Hole" is one of the lowest points in motion picture history. Even Ed Wood never committed to film a sequence so abysmal.
Only Aerosmith, who briefly bring the movie roaring to life with a knock-out performance of "Come Together," survive this train wreck completely unscathed. Not that there aren't a few other good points to it. The Bee Gees' and Frampton's renditions of Beatles classics really aren't all that bad, Earth, Wind & Fire does a catchy cover of "Got to Get You Into My Life," Paul Nicholas (from Ken Russell's TOMMY and LISZTOMANIA) is entertaining as Frampton's conniving cousin and Dianne Steinberg is sexy as Lucy (and does a surprisingly good disco take on "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds").
As decent as the music is, the ridiculous attempts to incorporate these songs into scenes which have little or nothing to do with the lyrics is often unintentionally hilarious, and sometimes downright bizarre. A scene in which Strawberry Fields tends to Billy Shears while singing "Strawberry Fields Forever" inadvertently comes off as an invitation to perform oral sex on her ("Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields..."). This oddball list of ingredients creates a cinematic disaster that is so astonishing and so mind-bogglingly ill-advised, it is genuinely fascinating to behold. It's like a musical PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE for the 70s.
SPLHCB is a favorite among bad movie buffs, though the movie itself has a loyal (albeit small) cult following. Stigwood followed this with such garbage as GREASE 2 and STAYING ALIVE. He had a mini comeback with EVITA, but otherwise his career is pretty much over.