It Was 50 Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt Pepper and Beyond, 2017.
Directed by Alan G. Parker.
SYNOPSIS:
IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY! THE BEATLES: SGT. PEPPER & BEYOND examines the twelve months (Aug 1966 – Aug 1967) that would arguably be the most crucial in the band’s career, a year in which they stopped being the world’s number one touring band and instead became the world’s most innovative recording artists, pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved in the studio.
In series three of 30 Rock, Jane Krakowski’s fantastically narcissistic “Jenna” attempts to get a Janis Joplin biopic off the ground. Things go array of course; first the rights of the music are not obtained, then the name. Yet this does little to her conviction so, alongside NBC executive Jack Donaughey, they piece together a biopic of Janet Jopfler, rock star famed for her debauchery and the global smash hit “Chunk of My Lung,” with lyrics including “take another chunk of my lung now mister,” and “you know you bought if life makes you sweet food.”
For what it’s worth, it’s rather convincing. Less convincing is It Was 50 Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt Pepper and Beyond, a Beatles documentary with more in common with Janis Jopfler than that of the fab four. Tracks from the titular album are absent, as is any clear shot of the Technicolor artwork, placating all this with Garage Band levels of haphazardly sampled psychadelia and visuals pulled together as if by a teenager only aware of The Beatles through The Simpsons episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet.”
Talking heads take on the form of unknown broadcasters all with whom one can imagine have breath stained by cigarette and bath water ale. They drop in now and then, explaining Sgt. Pepper with a half arsed conviction. A late appearance from one-time Beatle, Pete Best, adds a moment of slight poignancy but little more. John’s sister makes an appearance but they do little more than pad out the run time to an unpalatable two hours.
Director Alan G. Parker -a relative veteran of the rock doc -juggles bland, trivia card nuggets of nail-on-the-head-yeah-we-know-dahoy-dahoy information and an essay like narrative with absolutely no dexterity.
Just shy of two hours, it’s also a chore. A large proportion of it acts as almost a hit job on Brian Epstein, famed “fifth member,” their manager and counterpart with whom without him there would be no Beatles. He is portrayed as a drunk, a conniving drug addict crippled by his homosexuality. There’s also a brash undermining of Ringo, as with George. Paul gets off rather well, but at a certain point, it’s little more than John Lennon prick-tease.
There are no shock reveals (albeit for a moment with one time drummer Best), nor a behind-the-scenes making of the album, only arduous, bland, wholly vacant discussions of The Beatles as people. This may arouse certain hope for a moment, but the hope dwindles fast.
Even the most committed of Beatles fans would find It Was 50 Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper and Beyond a step too far. So dull in its retelling of an album famed for being anything but and laborious and onerous in its drab structure, it’s a rock doc of little interest.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Thomas Harris
Originally published May 19, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
