Keith Moon sings 'When I'm Sixty-Four'

September 5, 2023 10:41 AM

'All This and World War II': The Beatles Movie Nobody Asked For, Nobody Saw, and Nobody Remembers
posted by box (27 comments total)

Huh. There's a full orchestra backed Strawberry Fields Forever as the first track on Peter Gabriel's Flotsam And Jetsam collection of b-sides and tracks from other projects. I wonder if this is where that track came from.

I'm left asking the same question as the author: who is this movie for? It sounds ghastly, although the music seems like it might be a nice thing to know more of. I'm really shocked that I was Today Years Old to have heard of this for the first time.
posted by hippybear at 10:56 AM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm flabbergasted.

And I don't flabbergast easily.
posted by mazola at 11:13 AM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

The film archive where I worked in 2008/2009 had a print of the trailer. I had to read The Bootleg Files to figure out what it was.
posted by pxe2000 at 11:15 AM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

I though for sure this was a previously but I was mistaken - it was via this comment that I heard about it. In anycase, pretty weird film.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:44 AM on September 5, 2023

I once owned the album back in the day. Probably a re-gift from somebody. And I probably re-gifted it myself soon afterwards. A solid of example of the opposite of synergy ... the whole being magnitudes less than the sum of its parts.

Elton John, Bee Gees, Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart, Jeff Lynne, David Essex, Tina Turner, Status Quo, Brothers Johnson, Peter Gabriel ...

Not to mention the songbook.
posted by philip-random at 12:06 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Maybe someday Peter Jackson will unify all of his filmic interests and remake All That and World War II.

Just imagine--restored and newly-colorized WWII footage, coupled with the biggest artists of the 2020s putting their own spin on Beatles songs--'Michelle' by The Weeknd featuring Ice Spice and Cardi B, Jason Aldean sings 'Happiness is a Warm Gun,' Elton John does 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds 2023' with new lyrics about Meghan Markle.

Also it's nine hours long and there are hobbits in it.
posted by box at 12:16 PM on September 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

OMG I didn't want to know this existed! Put it away, put it away! (Thanks for posting it though.)
posted by not_on_display at 12:26 PM on September 5, 2023

Thank you so much for posting. I'm really enjoying some of these songs.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:27 PM on September 5, 2023

Elton John was involved with this and still agreed to be in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? I guess cocaine really is a helluva drug.
posted by TedW at 12:29 PM on September 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

At first I thought “it must have been a lot cheaper to use Beatles music on a soundtrack back in the 70s!” But then I remembered it was all covers, and the dude was a music industry exec.

Still, it’s a wonder that enough people thought this wasn’t a terrible idea that it actually got a theatrical release. Like not even one person in a boardroom stood up and said, “Y’know, maybe don’t insinuate that the Holocaust was a Magical Mystery Tour? Maybe just … don’t?”
posted by panama joe at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2023

I guess cocaine really is a helluva drug.

I'm usually down for it.
posted by hippybear at 12:32 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow, I couldn't even make it through the 3 minute trailer.
posted by crazy_yeti at 1:40 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ashwagandha that comment was mine; I first knew of this production a few years after its release because of Bryan Ferry singing "She's Leaving Home" and it was decades before I heard that (since I didn't want to spring for a double LP of covers). Such a curiosity, this film; eventually I had to acquire a bootleg copy, for analysis. It reminds me of the synching up The Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz. You know how Mark Twain said "It's really much better than it sounds" about Wagner? Kinda the same deal here.
posted by Rash at 2:16 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

The entire film was on youtube until recently, but Disney seems to have taken it down.

One of the few times that may be for the best.
posted by freakazoid at 3:03 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Elton John was involved with this and still agreed to be in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? I guess cocaine really is a helluva drug.

To be fair, further down in the article, the author notes that the Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds cover by Elton John had been recorded two years earlier for an unrelated project. I doubt EJ was even aware that his cover was used for this.

Elton John's involvement in The Sgt. Pepper's film, however, is totally on him.
posted by KingEdRa at 3:31 PM on September 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Elton John was involved with this and still agreed to be in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

I always believed this to be the source of Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was a decently successful single. With one Winston O'Boogie playing guitar on it, if memory serves.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:33 PM on September 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

(For those not steeped in the lore, that guitar player was John Lennon under a nom de pick. I strongly doubt he'd have agreed to do it for this project.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:35 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

In my best old man voice: “Is this the AI? This sounds like the AI.”
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:25 PM on September 5, 2023

Tina Turner's vocals rock Come Together, but the orchestration and production are soooo bad.
posted by Grumpy old geek at 6:20 PM on September 5, 2023

I strongly doubt he'd have agreed to do it for this project.

No as KingdRa notes, Elton's version of Lucy in the Sky was on Top 40 radio in 1974, five years previous.
posted by Rash at 6:28 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Elton John was doing LSD long before this horrific hallucination.
posted by hippybear at 6:40 PM on September 5, 2023

I am put in mind (slightly) of 1972's 'Orchestral Tommy' with the London Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Choir, with a number of guest singers including Rod Stewart singing the lead role in place of Roger Daltry. The packaging of the LP was quite striking, with the fold-out that held the two LPs printed to look like a pinball table. Fortunately no one ever thought to put it to newsreel footage of WWII.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:27 AM on September 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

MeFi: It's really much better than it sounds
posted by fairmettle at 4:24 AM on September 6, 2023

I really, really vaguely remember hearing about this, but not only never saw it but don't think that anyone I ever knew saw it either. The description really is flabbergasting, and that poster--"The Janes"? But it might be worth checking out just for some of the covers.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:38 AM on September 6, 2023

*Ahem* I remember it.
posted by lordrunningclam at 6:17 AM on September 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m dying to know what’s the archival film site mentioned in the first link. I’d ask here but that would be gauche.
posted by slogger at 8:15 AM on September 6, 2023

I didn't ask for it or see it but I do remember it. I also remember the reviews were not favorable.
posted by tommasz at 3:17 PM on September 6, 2023