Fabutrash Film of the Week: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

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There's no disputing that one of the greatest (if not the greatest) bands of all time is The Beatles.

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?

Fabutrash: 'Berserk!' is Craaaazy

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Listen, if you and I are going to be friends, then there's something you'll need to know about me.

I'm addicted to HRF.

HRF, or Hollywood Royalty Fabutrash, is a drug that comes in the form of most wonderful actors' and actresses' attempts at staying relevant in their twilight years. This drug is usually produced by actors who love their art so much that they continue to take on roles, even if those roles are in campy and poorly-written whodunnits like "Berserk!"

And, ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous Ms. Joan Crawford is one of the leading producers of HRF. Crawford is cemented into American culture because she was, indeed, a prodigious actress in her time, and titles like "Mildred Pierce" and "Grand Hotel" will live on in infamy.

And she even managed to crank out some pretty successful films in her later years. Just because she got old doesn't mean she got tired. I mean, look at "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" I personally think that's one of her best films and one of the greatest films of all time.

But enough about my hard-on for Joan. I want to get into the meat of this particular Fabutrash pick of the Week: "Berserk!"

The film follows the ringmaster of a travelling circus, played by Crawford. She's a whip-cracking task master to boot, and costume designer Jay Hutchinson Scott was obviously tasked with trying to make an aging Joan Crawford look sexy by putting her in some sort of Beyonce "Single Ladies" leotard that really accentuated Joan's huge head and mismatched petit body. Scott definitely failed. But this isn't about the costumes.

Crawford's character Monica Rivers is sort of down on her luck. Her show isn't doing that well and she's grasping at straws (or whips) to find some way to increase audience numbers. Then, people in her circus start dying.

As the saying goes, sex sells. But since live sex acts weren't about to be a part of Monica Rivers' circus (those would be performed with her young-enough-to-be-her-grandson boy toy behind closed doors), then I guess bizarre acts of violence had to take center ring, as it were.

But who's responsible for killing the circus performers while they're performing? Is it Monica Rivers' little sex slave? Is it the sex slave's jealous admirer? (That bitch!) Is it Monica herself?

All we know is someone is killing circus performers, and there's about a dozen suspects with just as many motives.

Now, this premise on its own actually isn't that bad. But the script, oh the script, makes "Berserk!" a piece of Hollywood trash that's been haphazardly frothed with gold spray paint. You'll find such snot-covered gems like Joan saying, "The French Revolution could have been avoided if Louis XVI had given the people a reason to celebrate," to which her little boy toy answers, "Don't forget what happened to Marie Antoinette."

And don't expect corny dialogue to rule the day, either. "Berserk!" is cut with scenes from actual circus performances that have nothing to do with the plot other than, well, they're circus performances. When I watched this movie, I felt like I was flipping back and forth between a Joan Crawford B-Movie and 1960s stock footage of Ringling Brothers. In fact, I bet if all the unnecessary juggling, tightrope walking and elephant riding shots were cut, "Berserk" would probably be about 20 minutes long.

I'm not going to give the ending away per se, but I am going to give you a big clue. So if you're that intent on watching "Berserk!" to see who the mysterious killer of circus acts is, then I give you permission to leave.

The No. 1 reason "Berserk!" was chosen as the Fabutrash Pick of the Week is because of the killer and the killer's motive.

I suspect screenplay writers Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen saw William Castle's "Strait-Jacket," which also starred Joan Crawford, and thought: "Wow! I didn't see that coming! Hey, I've got an idea! Let's do the exact same thing with the exact same character."

Yup. If you've seen "Strait-Jacket," then you'll see how "Berserk" has, well, the same ending, only with a far less plausible and far more ridiculous motive.

I'm rating "Berserk" 2 1/2 out of 5 Fabutrashes for being fabulously kitschy. I'd give it more if it weren't for all the unnecessary elephant ass shots.

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