Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Orchestra (film)

The picture takes place in the fictional American city of Heartland. The narration is on behalf of the mayor of the city, Mr. Kite. Long before the events of the picture, the local amateur orchestra Sgt played in the city. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In 1958, the last performer of the orchestra died and bequeathed to his grandson Billy Shears to continue his work, as well as magical musical instruments: cornet , trumpet , tuba and drum . Billy decides to assemble a group by inviting his best friends to the Hendersons brothers ( Bee Gees group). The group’s manager is Billy’s avid brother Dougie.

The very first performances of the new orchestra are very successful and the musicians receive an invitation to Hollywood to record their debut disc from the director of the BD label . The guys fly away in a balloon and they are escorted by the girl Billy Strawberry (Strawberry Field). In Hollywood, musicians immediately face all the temptations of the world of big money: drugs, alcohol and affordable women. Billy seduces seducer Lucy and he forgets his beloved.

While the orchestra musicians are away, the villain Mr. Mustard arrives in Heartland on his bus with a computer transmitting orders from the hostile FVB organization and steals the instruments. Without magic, a fun city falls into decay, becomes a resident of evil and violence. Strawberries goes to Hollywood, finds musicians and stops the recording session, talking about the trouble. Together they return to the city and begin the search for tools.

Musicians take away the mastard bus and rescue the instruments. Musicians decide to give a big concert with the participation of the circus in order to earn money for the city affected by the tyranny of Master. Assistants of Mastard try to steal money and steal a bus with money and Strawberries. Chasing criminals in a balloon, musicians get to the headquarters of the FVB organization, which turned out to be the Future Villain Band (Aerosmith band). Sgt Pepper musicians in a decisive battle are trying to save the girl, but she dies. The city hosts a solemn funeral ceremony. The girl is buried in a glass coffin. After the ceremony, the saddened Billy Shears leaves the city and at the end of a long winding road ends up in an old house with posters on the walls. He goes to the roof and finds there a golden weather vane, depicting Sergeant Pepper. When Shears is about to jump from the roof down, the weather vane comes to life, turning into Billy Preston. The villains are defeated, Strawberry resurrects and connects with Billy. In the happy ending, all the hero sings the main composition of the picture.

• Peter Frampton - Billy Shears
• Barry Gibb - Mark Henderson
• Robin Gibb - Dave Henderson
• Maurice Gibb - Bob Henderson
• Donald Pleasance - Director of BD / BD Hoffler
• Aerosmith - Future Villain Band (FVB)
• Alice Cooper - Father of the Sun
• George Burns - Mr. Kite
• Billy Preston - Sergeant Pepper
• Steve Martin - Dr. Maxwell
• Sandy Farina - Strawberry
• Frankie Howard - Mr. Mustard
• Paul Nicholas - Dougie Shears
• Diane Steinberg - Lucy
• Karel Streuken - Brutus
• Earth, Wind & Fire - Cameo

The emergence of such films as Saturday Night Fever and Briolin , which were a great box office success, marked the arrival of a new wave of musical films in the late 1970s. Being on the crest of success, producer Stigwood decided to take on the adaptation of the Broadway show, staged in 1974 based on the Beatles concept album “ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . " For the production of a full-length film, he acquired the rights to 29 compositions by The Beatles ^[1] . In the late 1970s, the idea of ​​adaptation of conceptual albums became popular. The pictures “ Tommy ”, “ Quadrofenia ”, “ The Wall ” ^[2] came out.

In his usual style, Stigwood impromptu assembled a team of those who might not have much experience in the genre of musical film. For director Michael Schulz, this was a debut in this genre, for screenwriter Henry Edward, in general, his first work in cinema. Schultz could have ended up in the director's chair of another film being shot at the same time - “Briolin”, but the producer decided that his style was more in line with the “Orchestra of the Club of Lonely Hearts ...”. In the position of musical director of the picture, responsible for recording music, managed to attract George Martin himself ^[1] .

Filming took place from October 1977 to March 1978 in California . Michael Schulz called them an organizational nightmare. On the one hand, he received an ensemble of stars of the first magnitude, but on the other hand, the schedule for the availability of performers on the set was extremely tight. Many of them had the opportunity to visit the set for just one day, so the production was carried out in an extreme hurry and turned out to be crumpled. Schulz did not have a full-fledged script, but there was only a list of songs and some sketch of the plot ^[3] . There were problems where no one was waiting for them. Throughout the production period, it rained continuously. “The weather was just killing us,” complained the director ^[4] .

Since the narrative of the picture consisted entirely of musical numbers, the plot had to be cut out of individual songs, and this was far from always possible to be done smoothly. Although Sgt Pepper was a concept album, he could not connect his songs into a single plot. Another difficulty was the lack of dialogue, only Kite, who read the voiceover, had replicas. In the US film industry, it is usually customary to record dialogs directly during filming. Here, the sound had to be applied after filming, at the installation stage. Actors could play in silence, which was quite unusual ^[4] .

With a budget of $ 12 million, the picture was the most expensive project led by a black director at that time. An additional 6 million was spent on advertising. Everything spoke of the future success of the picture. The number of pre-orders for an LP disc with a soundtrack of the picture exceeded 3 million copies. Compositions from the future film had excellent rotation on the country's radio stations. Peter Frampton and Bee Geez were then on top of success. Frampton recently recorded Frampton Comes Alive! having great success. High-profile advertising campaign included the launch of balloons with the symbols of the film ^[5] .

It was originally planned that the pictures will be released on Christmas (that is, December) 1978, but the studio postponed the release for the summer. This decision entailed a rush during the post-production and installation phase of the painting. The soundtrack was released just a few days before the release of the movie, although it is believed that it is best to release it 6-8 weeks before this point ^[5] .

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Orchestra was released in the United States on July 21, 1978. The picture failed at the box office, collecting only about $ 11 million in the USA and Canada. One of the main reasons the creators called the poor timing of the release and the organizational turmoil associated with the release of the album with the soundtrack ^[5] .

Criticism defeated the film, not particularly choosing expressions. Experts have found failure almost every component of the picture. NY Times columnist Janet Maslin ironically asked in a review: “Was it a movie at all?” ^[6] . Variety magazine described the picture as a mixture of chewing gum and cotton candy, ostentatious fabulousness and narcissism ^[7] . The Allmusic columnist called the incident a “disaster,” a shame for the Beatles' bright name and a shameful fact in the biography of all who were involved in the production of this picture ^[8] .

The strange thing was, first of all, the idea of ​​making Beatles musicians from another well-known band Bee Gees portray ^[6] . If there were any ideas in the picture, then all were borrowed from the Beatles films. The main part of the plot is not far from the Yellow Submarine and the battle of the Beatles with the Blue Zlyuks. “Having decided that the star team was enough, the producer of the picture didn’t even bother,” remarked Rolling Stone critic Charles Young. Even the scenery seemed matched somewhere in the backyards of Hollywood ^[9] . The acting was called pathetic, and the plot crumbled into separate songs ^[10] . “The apotheosis of idiocy,” the NY Times critic called the selection of songs for the respective scenes in the film. For example, the creators of the picture did not find anything better than to accompany the scene of the protagonist’s death and farewell to Strawberry, with the song Strawberry Fields Forever (“Living is easy with eyes closed / Misunderstanding all you see”). Not only does the song look like a mockery of a tragic scene, the actress does not even try to play. The composition of Golden Slumbers also sounds absurd and inappropriate during the funeral of Strawberries ^[6] . While the hero of Frampton was walking along a long and windy road, he, of course, sang The Long and Winding Road ^[9] .

George Martin found the idea of ​​staging a film on this album unsuccessful to be unsuccessful. No one could take a picture of it, he noted ^[11] . A similar idea was expressed by Paul McCartney, who believed that the musical ideas of the album are very difficult to visualize ^[12] . Although only stars were involved in the work on the soundtrack, Allmusic called the recording absolutely disgusting. Only Earth, Wind & Fire, Aerosmith and Billy Preston more or less coped with their task ^[8] . However, despite harsh criticism, LP with the soundtrack of the picture was very successful and became a multi-platinum album in the USA. Paradoxically, the release of the film on the screens had a beneficial effect on the sales of several Beatles song anthologies published in the late 1970s ^[5] .

• Louie Robinson A Rising star behind the camera // Ebony . - 1978. - Vol. 33 , no. 11 . - P. 2 . - ISSN 0012-9011 .
• R. Serge Denisoff, William D. Romanowski. Risky Business: Rock in Film . - Transaction Publishers, 2011 .-- S. 1 .-- 801 p. - ISBN 9781412833370 .
• Melvin Donalson. Black Directors in Hollywood . - University of Texas Press, 2010 .-- S. 3 .-- 389 p. - ISBN 9780292782242 .
• Deborah Cartmell. A Companion to Literature, Film and Adaptation . - John Wiley & Sons, 2012 .-- S. 4 .-- 448 p. - ISBN 9781118312049 .
• Charles M. Young. 'Pepper' is the pits // Rolling Stone . - 1978. - No. Aug 24 . - P. 2 . - ISSN 0035-791X .

• Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Internet Movie Database