Gonks Go Beat

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...

Connoisseurs of dreadful movies cherish the memory of this British equivalent of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", stuffed with acts whose plot opposition reflects the clash between post-Beatles rock and slushy romance in the mid-1960s charts. Yes, folks, for every Amen Corner there was an Engelbert Humperdinck, and for each "Hard Day's Night" there was a pop flick like this, with comedians mugging and strutting about the set to give the mums and dads something to laugh at. It should be explained that a gonk was a round, stuffed toy whose gormless features often gaped from the counterpanes of girls' bedrooms. In the catalogue of forgotten UK musical cash-in movies, this one ranks with "Just for Fun" and "The Cool Mikado".

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!

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!!

I watched this film in February 2017 on British TV (for details see below for others who may wish to watch it).

I have to say it is pretty awful. A sci-fi movie giving a retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story. Strange eh !

For people who "grew up" in the 1960s (like me) it is hard for people today to realize that watching pop groups at the time was difficult (we did not have 30 music channels on Sky as we have today for example).

So a number of films were made trying to cram as many pop groups in as they could. However most of the singers / bands / songs in this film are forgettable (yet another bland pop song rhyming "walk" with "talk", probably the most obvious rhyme you can come up with).

I am a fan of "bad" movies and I have to say this is right up there with the best / worst (alongside Dean Martin in his Matt Helm movies). If you are a fan of bad movies do try to catch it.

This film was shown on British TV in February 2017. It is on the TV channel "Talking Pictures" which is available on most platforms in the UK (Freeview, Sky, Virgin). The channel shows mostly lost or historical films and is a great place to watch films that may never have been shown on TV before (from all eras - 1930s up to 1990s).