All This and World War II

I would love to see this movie again. I saw it at the CINERAMA Dome in Hollywood, CA, 1976. The vinyl LP was a double album and had lots of cool stills and lyrics. I still remember the footage of the youngsters riding out to the english countryside in trains with gas masks on. What will it take to get this film printed again?

I saw this oddity once upon a time at one of Toronto's oddest little theatres, The Screening Room, which no longer exists. The room is still there, over the Kingsway Cinema, but it doesn't operate as a theatre anymore.

This would have been in 1979 or 1980, and they were showing a double bill of blasphemous Beatles films, this one and the Bee Gees' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978). We knew the Bee Gees would be an embarrassment, but we had greater hopes for this film. (And the Bee Gees were free if you bought a ticket for the other one, as I recall.)

It was certainly a relief to learn that the Allies won World War II but otherwise... The combination of sacrosanct Beatles tunes and wartime stock footage didn't sound like such a good idea, and when you actually saw it, it turned out to be even more ridiculous than you would have guessed. The only image I still recall 20 years on is one of the "famous" ones, "Get Back" being sung over German tank footage run in reverse. As the philosopher said, "It's a fine line between clever and stupid."

But it was better than the Bee Gees!

Everyone seems to want to know why this film has never been released in any official form for domestic consumption. Here's my guess. Copyright clearance. Most of the documentary footage is probably public domain, so it's not that. But there is a LOT of feature film footage from all over the place included, and I'm sure it would be a nightmare to clear it all for commercial publishing of the film. Then there is the music. Beatles would cost a lot, and there's a lot of Beatles in it - let's face it, it's wall-to-wall Beatles, and what is this film likely to return? The significance of the Second World War is rapidly diminishing in a world besieged by a whole new set of super-villains (take your pick). As you can read here, folks either LOVE it or LOATH it. Fascinating! Don't hold your breath expecting this one to be legally available soon. It's just too hard.

Fox must have had very big hopes for this documentary by Susan Winslow. She had previously produced BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME for Phillipe Mora which married 30s newsreel and mostly Warner Bros movie footage to gramophone songs of the period...a bit like PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, but as a narrative and narration free jigsaw puzzle of depression era imagery. She later produced the superb documentary on George Stevens: A FILM MAKERS JOURNEY which you must see for a definitive look at this great director's career. This time round, mid 70s and post THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT and just after TOMMY and its retro Brit rock success, somehow the idea to have The Beatles chart-hit songbook narrate World War 2 via Newsreels and 40s era Fox movies must have seemed like a great cocaine boardroom fueled possibility. So the context to create this film was definite and legitimate. It opened in Australia in the same huge 70mm Cinerama screen palaces that screened big Fox pix like The Poseidon Adventure or Butch Cassidy. I saw it at The Plaza Sydney which was the 1200 seat Imax style Spanish galleon plaster palace design - home of those pix above as well as long run reserve seat roadshows like Lucky Lady, and Mad Mad World. The opening salvo of Battleships Beatles and Blitzkreig in mega 6 track magnetic stereo through whopper speakers was enough to derail the subway below and send the audience to Jupiter. What followed was such a bizarre but strangely compelling visual and aural collision that it seemed so ambitious and ugly that it worked. I think there was only about 20 people at that session. It lasted a week or so and was quickly sent into storage. Even a few years later I ran it at my holiday resort cinema without even a wisp of curiosity or possibility that it might become a cult item. Probably it is a noble failure that might now be watchable for half an hour or so, but like BROTHER/DIME it became tiresome after 40 minutes when you realized, ironically, Peggy Lee style 'Is that all there is?". No story, just newsreel - Beatles MTV.

This documentary was released in 1976 and I was never able to watch it because the film flopped at the box office and never made it to my small hometown. To my surprise, I accidentally found it streaming on YouTube. It's never been released on any media VHS, laser disc, or DVD. I had almost given up entirely on finding it. If historical documentaries, old 1940s WWII movies, & Beatles songs are your thing, please give it a look. Thank goodness for YouTube. And of course, this won't be everyone's cup of tea. I always watch historical WWII footage, hoping to get a glimpse of my late father in action. I was so excited to see some scenes of the American military and their jeeps with their girls' names painted on them, hoping to glimpse my dad's Jeep with my mother's name. Sadly, I did not. But our family has a wonderful photo to cherish.