Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)
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| Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band | |
|---|---|
| Image:Sgtpepperdvd.jpg Cover art for the DVD | |
| Directed by | Michael Schultz |
| Produced by | Robert Stigwood |
| Written by | Henry Edwards |
| Starring | Peter Frampton The Bee Gees |
| Music by | The Beatles |
| Cinematography | Owen Roizman |
| Editing by | Christopher Holmes |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures (USA) Paramount Pictures (non-USA) |
| Release date(s) | July 21, 1978 (USA) |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18,000,000 (estimated)<ref>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078239/business</ref> |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is an American musical film released in 1978. Its soundtrack, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, features new versions of songs originally written and performed by The Beatles, primarily those on their 1967 album of the same name.
The production is somewhat adapted from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road, a 1974 off-Broadway production<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945312,00.html</ref> directed by Tom O'Horgan.<ref>According to IMDb, one of the credits for the film is "Stage production conceived and adapted by Tom O'Horgan."</ref> It tells the loosely-constructed story of a band as they wrangle with the music industry and battle evil forces bent on stealing their instruments and corrupting their home town of Heartland. The film is presented in the form of a rock opera with the Beatles' songs providing "dialogue" to carry the story<ref>George Burns performs the only actual spoken dialogue in the film.</ref>.
The film's tagline is "A splendid time is guaranteed for all".
[edit] Overview
The film was produced by Robert Stigwood, who had earlier produced Saturday Night Fever. Beatle's producer George Martin served as musical director, conductor, arranger and producer of the soundtrack album.
The film featured several performers at the height of their popularity:
- the Bee Gees, whose music had been integral to Saturday Night Fever,
- Peter Frampton, whose album Frampton Comes Alive! was the biggest-selling live album ever at the time, and
- Steve Martin, whose A Wild and Crazy Guy was released that same year, reaching number two on the music-dominated Billboard 200 album charts.<ref>http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/bio/index.jsp?pid=1163</ref>
The cast also featured Frankie Howerd, Paul Nicholas, George Burns, Donald Pleasence, Sandy Farina, Dianne Steinberg, Steve Martin, Aerosmith, Earth Wind and Fire, Alice Cooper, and Stargard.
[edit] Critical reaction
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film's "musical numbers are strung together so mindlessly that the movie has the feel of an interminable variety show"; while it may have been "conceived in a spirit of merriment, ... watching it feels like playing shuffleboard at the absolute insistence of a bossy shipboard social director. When whimsy gets to be this overbearing, it simply isn't whimsy any more." She complimented Martin on his "completely unhinged rendition of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," but pointed out that his scene is a "reminder that the film is otherwise humorless."<ref>Janet Maslin's review of the film from The New York Times</ref>
Perry Seibert of All Movie Guide called the film "quite possibly the silliest movie ever conceived," with a "handful of high camp moments" featuring Martin, Burns, and Aerosmith who "somehow transcend the jaw-dropping inanity that poisons the rest of the cast."<ref>http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:66209~T1</ref>
[edit] References and footnotes
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