Talk:Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)

Plot summary

OK, I guess I'll do it. But I'm going to hate myself in the morning. =^_^= --Dennis The TIger 05:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The Story Behind the Film

In the summer of 2003, I compiled this report on the making of the film and it's release. This was compiled from various websites, so feel free to check my credibility.

In 1974, a stage version of the album had opened under the guise of Bee Gees and RSO Records manager, Robert Stigwood. After seven weeks of atrocious reviews the play closed, but, as screenwriter Henry Edwards noted, “If there’s one rule that stands above all in Hollywood, it’s that if at first you don’t succeed, don’t, under any circumstances, try again. Mr. Stigwood was preparing to break this rule.” Edwards, a long-standing New York Times film critic, met Stigwood in April of ’76 to discuss bringing a retooled version of the production to the screen. Despite skepticism that the album could not be transferred onto celluloid, or that any Beatles-esque film for that matter was possible, Edwards was hired and set to work on the script. Edwards’ ‘inspiration’ came after comparing his situation to that faced by Hollywood writers in the 1930’s—who’d constructed plots around previously written material—and after witnessing the “romantic approach” a new pop-star, Peter Frampton, had infused into his music. “Old-fashioned sentiment and melody were in, and it seemed to me that a contemporary pop movie should reflect this return to romance. Mr. Stigwood listened to these ideas, aware that giving them his O.K. would result in a film as unconventional as it would be expensive. Grinning, he said, ‘It has the right feel to me.’” With hindsight, it’s easy to see that Edwards and Stigwood had learned nothing from the legendary 1975 musical/nostalgic fiasco At Long Last Love; namely, building a story around established material does not guarantee success. Edwards continued to work on the script, running into the inevitable difficulties of using all those Beatles songs to advance his ‘plot.’ Problems were solved through relaxation by wining and dining at Stigwood’s tax-evasion estate in the Bahamas; whenever, that is, Stigwood was not off producing the films Saturday Night Fever and Grease. The press started to latch-on. At the start of 1977, such luminaries as Bob Hope, Elton John, Rock Hudson and Doris Day were reportedly being considered for roles. Instead, the aforementioned cast was assembled, along with a couple of relative unknowns from RSO: Sandy Farina, and Paul Nicholas as Billy’s brother, Dougie, whom had just won modest success from a disco LP. George Burns was brought aboard because the town was set in the USA, but Frampton and the Gibbs all sported English accents! Then, at a meeting at Stigwood’s Acapulco hillside retreat just before production started, Stigwood announced they were over his allotted $12 million budget. Stigwood encouraged a melee of penny-pinching ideas, including scrapping entire scenes and location filming. Determined to continue the production but “do it for less,” this may explain the lowered-budget feel that is sometimes all-too-apparent in the film. Finally, at 7 am on October 3, 1977, 300 extras crowded into what had once been Andy Hardy’s old town square at Universal’s Century City to witness Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees perform the band’s opening number. Two weeks later, The Bee Gees, knowing full well the mess that lay ahead, were unsuccessfully lobbying Stigwood to be excused from the production. The lack of script was ever present, as was direction from Chris Bearde—whom had pulled his teeth on variety shows and was replaced by Michael Schultz—and the ‘choreography’ from Patricia Birch, veteran of several trippy films. The cast had no choice but to grin and bear it. Alice Cooper, on a pass between alcoholic treatments (which may explain his spaced-out appearance), had three days to film his scenes and record his vocals. And when KISS, originally chosen to play FVB, refused to be in the movie, sighting threat to their image (they probably read the script), Aerosmith was brought on board. But Steven Tyler almost walked after he refused to be murdered by Frampton in the film, so the scene was redone to make his demise look like an accident (it doesn’t look that way on film, though).

In the spring of ’78, Stigwood was on top of the world. Fever and Grease ruled the box office, and RSO Records was pounding out the soundtracks to both films. Then, just before this film’s release date, things started to go wrong. For some reason, Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees went to court over who would receive top-billing for this debacle. The budget ballooned to $18 million. In June, Peter Frampton was seriously injured in a car accident while in the Bahamas and was unable to attend the film’s premier in Times Square. It was better he did not: Billy’s attempted suicide at the film’s conclusion prompted the audience to yell “Jump! Jump!” Stigwood forged ahead undaunted. By the July 24 release date, two million copies of the double-album soundtrack had been pressed; along with ‘The original’ Beatles recording. The add campaign lifted a line from ‘Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite’ and declared “A Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All.” The only “Splendid Time” to be had was by critics whom gleefully tore the film apart. Beatles fans staged boycotts and bought the original Sgt. Pepper, which rose onto the charts once more (see, people do have taste), while the soundtrack is said to have returned triple-platinum to the stores (meaning even the bootlegs refused to sell!). The producers lost nearly a third of their investment, and RSO records went under. VH-1 would later place the movie at #76 among their 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock’n Roll. Over the years, an urban legend sprouted that the film has Bad Karma which permeates all who graced it's scenes. While Steve Martin quietly buried his first film role (and singing career), Donald Pleasence bounced back with his turn as Michael Myers in that fall’s cult-slasher Halloween, and Earth Wind and Fire’s cover of ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ actually reached #9 on the charts, it was downhill for the rest of the gang. Their album, Spirits Having Flown, would sheen The Bee Gees’ career, but the disco backlash a year later took them out of the limelight. Sandy Farina’s following album tanked, Alice Cooper sank into a decade of alcoholism, Aerosmith didn’t chart the top forty again until 1987, George Burns had one flop after another, and Billy Preston almost disappeared altogether. But the majority of flack was aimed at Frampton. His movie-career vaporized, and he would spend nearly twenty years in submission. (154.5.166.187 04:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC))

Actually, regarding that last paragraph, I remember Aerosmith's cover of Come Together got a lot of airplay on the radio for years after the film. I thought it was, in some way, better than the Beatles' original. =Axlq 00:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you get that Burns had "one flop after another". Oh God, Book II came out after this and while the critics didn't love it, it did decent worldwide box office. His next film in the Oh God series (Oh God, You Devil) did even better with the critics, and based on the boxoffice shown in its Wiki entry it definitely made money. In any event, at that point everybody was so amazed George Burns was still upright and still able to act that it did not hurt his career in the slightest to be in this Sgt. Pepper film. Also, many of Burns' fans were older people who cared little about either this Sgt. Pepper film or the original Sgt. Pepper album because they were past the age of being interested when it first came out.

As for Aerosmith, the previous guy is right that their version of "Come Together" was pretty popular and no one looked down on them for having been in the film - in fact they were regarded as perhaps the coolest and most "rock and roll" thing in it, which is probably why their single was the one getting the airplay. Aerosmith had major internal and substance abuse problems going on well before this film was made, and the film wasn't really responsible for what happened to them. Alice Cooper was definitely an alcoholic well before this film was made and had done one stint in rehab and sobered up for a bit during which time he made this film, before falling back off the wagon and trying to go "new wave" to keep up with the changing times, which failed. As you noted the Bee Gees did all right with Spirits Having Flown before everyone got sick of them for a while - not only because disco was sinking but also because many other artists had been releasing Bee Gees soundalike records (their brother Andy Gibb, and someone else called Samantha Sang who had a big hit "Emotion") and the sound had been done to death. Really, the only people who were seriously adversely affected by this film were probably RSO, Frampton and the unknown folks like Farina who weren't well known enough to weather one flop.

There is one tidbit I remember in connection with this film: the soundtrack album was pressed and shipped to stores where it was really heavily promoted and featured (like the entire store full of displays of the album - I remember this well from the time) but it didn't sell very well. So the unsold copies were shipped back to the distributor because the stores got some reimbursement on unsold records. A massive amount of unsold copies went back and it turned out more copies were shipped back than had even been shipped out, because there was some major illegal activity with pressing plants making "extra" copies of hit albums. This turned into a big record industry scandal at the time. Read that story in some record industry book, can't remember which one as I used to read a lot of such books. TheBlinkster (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

July 21, 1978: A date which will live in infamy!

I actually liked this movie when it came out - I was twelve, and I knew nothing about the Beatles beyond their hit singles - but having since become a diehard Beatles fan, I spend a good deal of my time warning people who weren't around at the time not to see it! It's the Cleopatra of rock musicals!!

(Captain Caveman 22:23, March 31, 2007 ET US/Canada)

Other tidbits

Mick Jagger was supposed to play the Future Villain at first, according to George Martin in his autobiography, so Aerosmith was actually the third choice!

I read in Entertainment Weekly that three million copies of the soundtrack were sold but eight million were printed! Is this right?

The better story is that three million were shipped but five million were returned. This was 1978. You work that out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.230.41 (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Maurice Gibb is the only cast member other than George Burns with dialogue. At the start of "Getting Better," Maurice, as drummer Bob Henderson (Bob?), counts in the beat.

Look for Pat Cranshaw, who played Andy on the TV series "Alice," as a Western Union messenger.

(Captain Caveman 22:33, March 31, 2007 ET US/Canada)

on a whim, because of this inexplicable wave of 09-09-09 re-Beatlemania among my school-aged children, I revisited this film and y'know, snarky comments aside, it isn't that bad really, it was us who were too jaded to watch it, but the real news was the reaction of the kids: my 9 and 10 year olds have watched it three times since it arrived, their school friends all want to see it, and the 4 year old not only watched it FIVE times, but drew a picture of Robin Gibb, "sad because of Strawberry" and instructed me to send it to Robin (which I did, to his Facebook page ;).

This is all anecdote so I didn't edit the article, but I think we may be needing to amend this article very soon to say the movie was a 32-year sleeper that didn't click until the world was over its Beatle-worship and all the cool hipsters like myself were old, grey and unavailable for comment ;) -- I fully expect this film may yet significantly augment Robin and Barry's retirement, and let's hope redeems Stigwood too.

--Teledyn (talk) 21:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The guest descriptions

I replaced the guest descriptions because the "guests" are one thing about this movie that I found very interesting. I wanted to know who these people were, why they were invited, etc. I was hoping at some point to be able to match the guest list to the guests' locations in the lineup, either by listing them in order, or keying to a still picture. Mpaloutz 15:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

At the film’s conclusion, the cast gathers atop a grandstand for a rousing rendition of the Sgt. Pepper reprieve. But the producers decided to end their film with a bang; a modernized tribute to the original album’s cover. For a production of such poor taste, the creators managed to ream onto the grandstand virtually every major musical artist from the late ‘70’s. At a cost of a half-million dollars, these celebrities were flown in first-class from around the world and housed at choice accommodations for one day’s filming. Unfortunately, we only catch brief snippets of ‘Our Guests at Heartland’ during the hand-clapping finale, which is a shame: any footage of these stars leaving and departing the set is bound to be more interesting than the entire film. (205.250.167.76 02:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC))

The interesting thing about the "guest list" to me is how relatively unknown a lot of them were. There are also some people like songwriters and record industry types who would be well known to people in the industry, but would not be known at all, especially by sight, to the average movie viewer. There are a few bona fide stars like Keith Carradine listed, but I suspect a number of the people invited were just somebody's buddy or were owed a favor or something. TheBlinkster (talk) 16:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Billy Preston.jpg

Image:Billy Preston.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 01:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Sgtpepperdvd.jpg

Image:Sgtpepperdvd.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 03:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Beatles' Reactions

There's nothing on the page concerning how the actual Beatles reacted to the film. Did they react or pan it entirely? --Pittsburghmuggle 13:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Farina links to album

The Sandy Farina link redirects to the album of this film. Farina is listed as performing a couple of the tracks. However, I don't think this is a usefull link. I didn't want to just start deleting links though. Dannman (talk) 15:50, 4 March 2014 (UTC)