Their music is classic and covers such a wide variety of genres. There's at least five Beatles songs that can speak to any one person at any given time, and that's a statistical fact.
You can find a Beatles song to match any mood, and since their music is basically the soundtrack to our lives, then of course it's a good idea to string together all The Beatles' songs and make it into a story, right?
All the characters are there. Billy Shears, Strawberry Fields, Mean Mr. Mustard, Mr. Kite and even Lucy and the Diamonds. The story almost writes itself.
Which I think may have been what screenwriter Henry Edwards thought was going to happen when he decided to draft a rock opera of sorts complied of Beatles music. That movie is "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and it is sill one of my all-time favorite pieces of crap to this day.
The story is about Billy Shears, played by Peter Frampton, who starts a band with his buddies Mark, Dave and Bob Henderson, otherwise known as the BeeGees. They form Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is actually a reboot of a band that was a staple in the town of Heartland, USA since the '20s.
The only speaking role throughout the whole film is George Burns as Mayor Kite. He narrates the whole thing so the audience doesn't get completely lost throughout the convoluted story that's the result of taking a bunch of songs and attempting to string them into a plot.
So Billy Shears and the Hendersons are offered a contract in Hollywood. They head out there as quick as their hot air balloon can take them, and as soon as they arrive, they meet Lucy and the Diamonds. Well, this is all grand for Billy, but what about Billy's love back at home? Poor Strawberry Fields!
Hollywood of course ends up corrupting the boys as much as Frampton and the BeeGees can be corrupted. Which translates to them getting drugged one night and tricked into signing a contract.
Well, while they're off making musical hits like "Oh, Darling," it turns out the villain of the movie, FVB, has recruited a slew of nasties to steal the original Sgt. Pepper's instruments because, you know... uh... that's what FVB does.
Said nasties include Frankie Howerd as Mean Mr. Mustard, a disgruntled real estate agent who takes over Heartland and turns it into the equivalent of Reno; Father Sun, a bestached Alice Cooper who brainwashes adults into worshipping money and hating love; and an odd and out-of-place Steve Martin as Dr. Maxwell, who transforms old, ugly people into beautiful young boy scouts.
And oh, FVB themselves are played by none other than Aerosmith. And if you think that's badass, then you'll probably faint from sheer badassery when you realize FVB stands for, wait for it, Future Villain Band!
Bam!
The music is the best part of this whole shebang. If you want to know what The Beatles might sound like during the age of disco, then "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"is for you. Stargard's rendition of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" alone is worth all the glitter and and unitards in the world.
Peter Frampton and the Bee Gee's acting skills are so sub par that it makes community theater look like Broadway. And the costumes! Oh, the costumes. Simply writing about it doesn't do it justice at all. You have to see it to believe it.
Yeah. Image 113 minutes of that!
This film is so bad that's it's just wonderfully good. There's greed, drugs, RVs, wheelbarrows full of money, arcades, motorcycle gangs, singing manequins, "Star Wars" nods, giant spinning vinyl record beds, magic, singing robots, hookers and death. Oh, and this movie answers the age old question: "When you die, is your soul a completely different race?" The answer, my friends, is yes. Yes, it is. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get to the end of the flick.
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is getting a 3 1/2 out of 5 Fabutrash rating. I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel! I guess the filmmakers just decided to Let It Be.
Hee hee. See what I did there?
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