Gonks Go Beat

GONKS GO BEAT is a very strange, low budget British sci-fi oddity. It's a musical re-working of the Romeo and Juliet storyline, with a unique sci-fi twist; an alien is sent to a futuristic Earth (which looks remarkably like the 1960s) where mankind is divided into two warring tribes. His goal is to bring the two tribes together through music and romance.

The description above doesn't really do justice to the sheer oddness of this production. It's basically a musical in which one number plays after the other from beginning to end. Stars like Lulu show up to contribute a number and then disappear. In between the songs, we get some random trappings of the sci fi genre, with respectable actors pretending to be aliens and Kenneth Connor delightfully mugging as the alien ambassador. My favourite scene is the convoy of cars with guitarists sitting on top and playing away - great stuff. What, might you ask, is a gonk? The answer is that they're cheesy soft toys that play a minor role in the proceedings, just adding to the bizarre feel. The film as a whole is weird, quirky, and very, very cult.

I still have a copy of this film on VHS video, it came out sometime in the nineties as part of a series of British "musicals" including Tommy Steele and Billy Fury. I have seen it available at boot fairs and second hand record/video shops so i guess others were buying/watching at one time. This is the sort of film that can clear a house of unwanted guests leaving a hardcore of like minded (barking mad) friends to laugh themselves stupid (i know from experience) .it is that bad. like one of the other posters i think the drumming sequence is amazing but the lulu sequence with the "gay looking" backing singer clapping is hysterical "darling do try to look as butch as you can, while clapping your hands in the air, splendid!" as the other posters have noted the songs are not great the acting is awful and the story is virtually non existent so all together a truly awful film right! no! in the right mood and with friends of equal IQ (friday night IQ) its great fun. go and find a copy (somewhere in the UK) and watch. PS when i was at college i even tried persuading the film club to show this, but was turned down in favour of the french film Weekend-from the stupid to the bloody boring...

Beautiful. Two cultures not fitting together yet still trying. How romantic!! And all these songs!!!! Oooh I have a new favorite film like!!! This film is what the youngsters nowadays are lacking!! No twilight without gonks go beat!!

Incredibly rare, mid-60's rock and roll sci-fi obscurity. So rare, most film books don't even LIST the title.

A recent screening of the sole surviving print at Hollywood's AMERICAN CINEMATEQUE, shows that the film is no great shakes, but worth seeking out for the completists.

GONKS tells the story of an Alien who comes to earth to settle a dispute between the two great nations of our future planet. One nation loves rock and roll, the other, ballads. The Alien befriends a bizarre former Record Exec (Mr. A & R) who looks suspiciously like Buddy Holly (if had he lived to join Elvis in Vegas!). The pair hatch a scheme to set up a Romeo and Juliet-like romance to bring the warring nations together.

It works, but not before a bunch of mediocre rock songs and warbled ballads are sung, cheap stage-bound sets are trampled and the audience's patience is worn thin. Meanwhile, on planet Gonk, a bunch of hand puppets runs amok. Gonks were furry toys popular in England at the time.

The biggest highlight is a thrilling 9 Drummer jam session (led by Ginger Baker and Alan White) held in a prison cell (don't ask). Otherwise, it's fairly dull with only a little schlock value.

CARRY ON regulars Kenneth Connor and Terry Scott co-star with Are You Being Served?''s Frank Norton as Mr. A & R. The recording artists include Lulu, The Nashville Teens and the Graham Bond Organization (which included Baker and Jack Bruce).

You have to be a real killjoy not to love this splendidly silly film, a kind of bubblegum version of Romeo and Juliet. However, the film is of some historical interest, featuring footage of the Graham Bond Organisation (urged on by a cane-wielding, mortar-board-donning Reginald Beckwith!). Musical numbers of widely varying merit are interspersed among the unfolding of a mind-bogglingly lightweight romance between a Beatland boy (sometime Joe Meek protege Ian Gregory) and a Balladisle girl, as seen from the viewpoint of a visiting alien (Kenneth Connor). Perhaps this studio-bound cheapathon was UK cinema's last unabashed quota-quickie. What a contrast with John Boorman's wintry, wistful "Catch Us If You Can" (made in the same year), and yet 60s-phobes (of whom there are regrettably many) are likely to bracket the films together as throwaway musicals!