Review: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Mr. Kite (George Burns) tells the story of the title band who entertained the town of Heartland until 1958 when the sergeant died of a heart attack. Their instruments still remain in town, and now a new incarnation of band (played by Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees) have picked up where the original band left off. Trouble comes in the form of greedy record company head B.D. Hoffler (Donald Pleasence) and a thieving git named Mean Mr. Mustard (Frankie Howerd), the latter of whom hopes to steal the sacred instruments, the former might just steal their souls. The only hope? The lovely Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina).

 

I’m a Beatles fan, Sgt. Pepper is one of their best and most iconic albums. I’m also a fan of Steve Martin, Donald Pleasence, Billy Preston, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Earth Wind & Fire. I also rather like some of The Bee Gees stuff, much as I’d love to never hear ‘More Than A Woman’ ever again. So I should like this 1978 all-star film right? No, and not just because I’m generally allergic to musicals. That doesn’t help, though. Directed by Michael Schultz (“Cooley High”, “Car Wash”, “Carbon Copy”, “The Last Dragon”), even most fans of musicals let alone fans of The Beatles or any of the cast members tend to hate this now largely forgotten flop. Scripted by Henry Edwards (something called “The Great Skycopter Rescue” with Aldo Ray and William Marshall) and loosely adapted from an off-Broadway musical, you have to squint real hard here to uncover even the slightest plot in this shapeless, chaotic bore. I struggled to write that synopsis, truly. The best thing is the soundtrack and even that is a real mixed bag. I knew going in that this was going to be a struggle since I don’t like musicals and this one has a bad reputation. Unfortunately, I got what I expected.

 

It starts terribly. The songs aren’t in tracklist order from the Beatles album, “Here Comes The Sun” isn’t even supposed to be here (which can be said of several songs), and let’s be honest, George Burns is only enjoyed by Americans. He plays Mr. Kite, can’t sing, and is typically awful. I will admit his vaudeville version of “Fixing a Hole” at least isn’t terrible. The title track is fine enough but The Bee Gees (and producer Robert Stigwood for that matter) are only here because of the success of “Saturday Night Fever”, we all know that. They aren’t terribly suited to The Beatles’ music (they don’t even use their falsetto voices much so why are they even bothering?), though the version they and Peter Frampton do of “With a Little Help From My Friends” isn’t that much different to Ringo’s version. Which is to say it’s OK but not to the standard of Joe Cocker’s definitive version of the song. I don’t really get Peter Frampton, having not grown up on his music and I rarely hear more than one or two songs of his on the radio. His version of “Getting Better” is just OK, mainly hampered by his frankly weak voice.

 

The decision to rely a lot on voiceover narration (from Burns, sigh) has the benefit of not requiring the Gibb brothers to act much, but also barely makes this a movie at all and it’s also not very good narration. When we don’t have Burns’ narration, we get title cards randomly thrown in because no one here knows how to make a coherent, cohesive film. Playing the villainous Mean Mr. Mustard is alleged comedian Frankie Howerd, who is instantaneously unendurable. His facial mugging did not tickle my funny bone or any other bones. His ghastly version of the aforementioned song is one of the worst things I’ve heard since Mariah Carey covered Def Leppard’s “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak”. The most disappointing and frankly bizarre song rendition however comes from someone I very much like: Donald Pleasence, who with a wild wig and a cowboy hat talks his way through his part in “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. The whole performance and arrangement of it is an interminable mess, it barely even counts as a song as performed here if you ask me. By the way, Pleasence and Barry Gibb compete for the award of Most Coked Out Performer in this film. I think wild-eyed Barry might have it by a snow-covered nostril. It’s hard to do “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” with any credibility, and comedian Steve Martin certainly doesn’t come close. Love you Steve, but this wasn’t one of your finest moments.

 

On a better note (thank you, try the lobster), The Bee Gees and Frampton do a slowed-down version of “Nowhere Man” which is fine enough, and Dianne Steinberg does a more than acceptable job of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” that still sits a distant third behind the original and Elton John’s solid cover. I even thought Robin Gibb did alright with “Oh Darling”. Unfortunately, a Frank Zappa-esque Alice Cooper is here to talk his way through “Because” and can thank Donald Pleasence and Frankie Howerd for being even worse. It’s nonetheless fucking awful and the worst thing I’ve heard from Alice Cooper who was hopefully very drunk at the time. Thankfully things pick up in the back half of the film where you’ll find the two Beatles covers from this film that have at least endured somewhat. We stumble into a random Earth Wind and Fire conert for their genuinely fun version of “Got to Get You Into My Life”. Sure, it’s followed up by Sandy Farina and Frankie Howerd’s abysmal “When I’m 64” but after that we get a surely not completely coked-up Aerosmith doing their excellent cover of “Come Together”. Seriously, Joe Perry looks completely out of his skull. Frampton’s “The Long and Winding Road” isn’t a patch on the original but his best moment by far. The Bee Gees follow that up with their best moment covering “A Day in the Life”, it’s the only song they do where they sound completely themselves. Barry sounds great and it’s a respectable enough cover in a sea of shite. However, my favourite moment and performance in the film by far is the hilariously sudden appearance by The 5^th Beatle himself Billy Preston giving us a brilliant, energetic version of “Get Back” (he played on the original, too). He’s a hoot. We end with a fun reprise of the title song but this time featuring a celebrity cast recreating the album cover. Those I spotted were: Dame Edna (Barry Humphries), Peter Allen, Tina Turner, Carol Channing, Dr. John, Jose Feliciano, Robert Palmer, Wolfman Jack, and Johnny Winter. The film is pretty dreadful but at least it ends on a high.

 

How can a film with absolutely no cohesion and barely any plot manage to run for nearly two hours? Who thought this bizarro mess was fit for release? That everyone here worked their absolute hardest is truly head-scratching. An endurance test even for fans of The Beatles, The Bee Gees, or Peter Frampton. I can’t give this too low of a rating because there’s at least three genuinely great song performances (and a couple of OK ones), but the film is terrble. The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton performing the title song on a TV broadcast in an old folks home says a lot.

 

Rating: C-