With A Little Help From My Friends

The tagline on the poster read, "A splendid time is guaranteed for all." Lies, lies, lies. Just this morning I was treated to a viewing of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". Not the album, the movie. In a continuing series of films that have made me rethink my subscription to cable television, this one was a little like watching a train wreck in slow motion, starring the Brothers Gibb and Peter Frampton.
As an historical document, it was informative for my son to see that moment when the last nail was pounded squarely into the coffin of the disco age. Not content to wallow endlessly in the vats of money that had been generated by "Saturday Night Fever", the greedy twits at the Robert Stigwood Organization concocted this satin and polyester beast as a follow-up vehicle for the Bee Gees, even though they had no acting experience, and pretty boy guitarist Peter Frampton. With a soundtrack comprised entirely of Beatles songs and a voice-over narration by God (George Burns) himself, how could it miss?
Steve Martin, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Earth, Wind and Fire, Billy Preston: If you need more proof of how bad cocaine is, try to imagine the piles of blow that had to be poured into this production just to get these folks up off the couch and in front of the camera. In the same year that he gave his career-defining turn as Doctor Loomis in "Halloween", even Donald Pleasance allowed himself to be debased in ways peculiar to the late 1970's.
Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. I have watched "Xanadu" and "Grease" (released just a month before the Sergeant Pepper abomination) and had a kitschy good time. Even the Beatles themselves found out that their music wasn't a sure-fire ticket to a hit movie, as witnessed by "Magical Mystery Tour". Maybe what they needed was more Olivia Newton John.