Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Someone must have noticed that "Yellow Submarine" made money. That same person also noticed that the Bee Gees were popular. Put a popular disco group and popular Beatles songs together, and: magic???

Well, not really. This film hurts. It hurts all the more if one likes the Beatles' originals of these songs (OK, Aerosmith did a decent version of "Come Together," but that is not enough to mitigate the damage caused by the rest of the performances).

There are certain films that seem to be made just to put the tolerance of a badfilm watcher to the test. This film has its place in that pantheon, right between "Can't Stop the Music" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."

Fmovies: This movie is like a trainwreck. You don't want to watch, but its impossible to resist. Some of the songs aren't bad at all! Earth Wind & Fire and Aerosmith turn in excellent performances. Overall the movie is so over the top and campy, that you can't possibly take as anything but a somewhat fun romp, the likes of which we will never see again.I can only speculate on the amount of drugs that were consumed on the set of this movie..haha. The ending has to be seen to be believed. A crowd of 70's personalities and musicians on a platform singing Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I can only imagine what the 70's were like to live through, but if this is any indication...LOL...

This movie makes Magical Mystery Tour look like Citizen Kane. Hokey! Corny! Horrible! Do yourself a favor and just fast forward to Aerosmith's performance. What a way to Dis the Beatles. George Martin should be ashamed of himself! This movie could have been made by Fellini. It's one freak show after another. Just when you think it's bad, George Burns gets up and sings "Fixing a Hole". He sure fixed the holes in the sides of my head...my ears bled for a week. A better use of this movie would be as a public service to keep kids off of drugs. Peter Frampton is such a dork that he actually makes the Bee Gees look cool. That should get an award in itself. The sets were so cheesy I was expecting Henrietta Hippo and that green frog to pop out from the New Zoo Review. Maybe this movie is really just for three year-olds. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band fmovies. I stumbled across an unlicensed videocassette of the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. Being a pop-culture junkie I had to have it. It ranks up there with the worst movies of all time - absolutely everything about it was poorly thought out. The basic premise is that they took all these Beatle's songs and strung them together to make a story, so the characters had to come from names or words from Beatle's songs: for instance, Frampton's character (the lead singer for the Lonely Hearts Club Band) is Billy Shears (if you'll recall Billy Shears is introduced by the Beatles at the beginning of Sgt. Pepper as the singer of 'get by with a little help from my friends... etc.). His girlfriend is named Strawberry Fields (any guesses where that came from?) Later he is tempted by Lucy, from the female rock band Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (I'm really not kidding), and happiness is threatened by Mean Mr. Mustard, who abducts Strawberry, and also Dr. Maxwell Edison (majoring in medicine with silver hammers). Although they sing 'Nowhere Man' and 'Polythene Pam' these names do not appear as characters somehow. There are about 20 Beatles songs in the movie not sung by the Beatles, and the lead characters never speak - all the narration is done by Mr. Kite ('a benefit for Mr. Kite' and yes there is such a benefit) played by George Burns who even dons a guitar to sing 'fixing a hole'. There are almost no words to describe how awful this film is. Everything about it was a complete disaster, although the Beatles' songs are all familiar and delightful, they are delivered in a context that simply doesn't work (for instance there are a couple of melancholy songs sung - 'long and winding road' etc. after Strawberry is killed in a fight with Aerosmith). One of the sublime moments was when Strawberry Fields sings 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. She's singing to herself about herself. Forever. Fantastic.

Production values were high - they spent a lot of money on this fantasy. It lost all of its investment and Peter Frampton, who's performance has to be seen to be believed (the cast of 'Punky Brewster' seems almost Shakespearean in comparison) was so embarrassed that he bought almost all of the prints back to have them destroyed for posterity's sake. But some got away, and I got my cassette. What a treasure.

OK, I've been hearing a lot of negative reviews for this film. To be honest, I do agree that watching it alone is very weird. I borrowed this from the library, and I am a HUGE Beatles fan so I had to watch this, and I felt stupid-but pleased. I was pleased with some of the covers of songs! Others I was less pleased with. I personally loved this because it had a very campy feel, and I could definitely see this being shown at midnight showings with a "Rocky Horror" style viewing. It was not THAT bad, people! When they did "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight", I almost cried... almost, still worth mentioning though. Plus, they got some pretty good bands doing covers! Sometimes, flattery towards an amazing band, is a form of showing appreciation for that of which was perfection. Overall, I LOVED the camp feel of this movie! Covers I loved: Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Come Together, Fixing a Hole, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight, Get Back, Covers that I did not like: Mean Mr. Mustard (unbearable), Oh! Darling, that's all the ones I hated I think... I didn't mind the others (they aren't THAT bad!)

I think the Bee Gees destroyed what they've created, because they began the disco movement unintentionally (Main Course 1975) and then again they began the disco backlash (Sgt. Pepper's 1978) they almost said to the world: "Hey, remember the good music, that was rock!". Bee Gees certainly didn't realize the musicians they are or were. They never appraised themselves, they're always talking about Beatles, and Beatles are great, but Bee Gees too, and sometimes comparisons ain't good. I agree the Beatles are most like the beginning of something, the fathers of some, but the Bee Gees have their own style and went out thru 5 decades making versatile and different music. The Bee Gees beat any sales record in the world, and if they're BIG, I wonder what happened if they had never filmed Sgt. Pepper's.

And my vote is 10 because this film is a beautiful and completely entertaining "Sunday-movie" antique.

Weird but it's true: If I could have been in 1978 I would hate it. I agree time heals some wounds.