The Apple

Proudly taking its place next to "Can't Stop the Music", "Xanadu", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and other breathtakingly bad musicals is this rapturously awful piece of celluloid punishment. This one tops all of the aforementioned flicks in the heinousness department because the others, at least, contain some modicum of memorable and, even good, music! Released in 1980, this film is set in the far-flung future of 1994. Music (and apparently most everything!) is controlled by a huge conglomerate called BIM. During a World Music Festival, Stewart and Gilmour, two young, folksy types, pit their sappy love ballad against the over-the-top, synthetic music of Kennedy and Love. They come close to winning the competition, but the evil head of BIM (Sheybal) rigs it so that they lose. Realizing their potential, however, he attempts to sign them to a record deal. Stewart foolishly gives in while Gilmour stands his ground. Once he sees what the money, drugs and sexual excesses are doing to her, he attempts to break her away from BIM. The rather basic plot line takes its cues from The Bible, but is souped up with Rocky Horror Show-style hair, make-up and costuming topped off with ludicrous production design and some of the most dreadful, ear-assaulting production numbers ever to be captured on film. The story is slight to begin with, but is barely allowed to play out in between the endless, increasingly-bad songs. The numbers include a trip into hell, a plethora of couples writhing and posing on beds, a thoroughly zany enforced-exercise sequence and several tacky onstage concert sequences. Fans seem to be split on which songs they like or hate more...the disco-esquire BIM songs or the love ballads cranked out by Gilmour. None of the songs in the film are particularly memorable though, even if one can't get the imagery that goes with them out of one's head! It is astonishing that Stewart could actually carve out some type of career after this. Her fresh face and amiable persona somehow won out. She actually enjoyed a fairly healthy TV and movie resume in the wake of this film. Gilmour dropped off the face of the earth entirely, apparently. His singing isn't all that bad and he had a sexy body (shown off to good advantage at several stages of the movie) but he could not act at all and occasionally resembles Will Farrell! Kennedy and Love were also virtually obliterated by this turkey. Love was quite awful, but Kennedy actually appeared to have a certain amount of talent and presence and it's a shame she was sunk before she even got started. Sheybal had a long career as a character actor and he always strikes a distinctive note, but his singing here is disastrous. Ackland pops up briefly near the end and also can't sing, but manages to provide a little presence in a dual role. The film makers believed that 1994 would bring huge gas-guzzling cars with pointy ends and lots of paraphernalia attached, but aerodynamics actually won the day. However, their insight into the way the music business has evolved isn't all that far off the mark! Useful as a party-enhancing laugh machine. Look high and low, far and wide, but it is unlikely that a more splendiferously hideous film will be found.

I was stationed with the USAF in West Berlin when this was filmed. (There are W. Berlin landmarks in the film, even though it's supposed to be New York.) My husband was an aspiring actor and always showed up at auditions when something was being filmed. He got a part as a newspaper reporter and general all-round extra, and I got a part as an extra, too. In fact, many of the extras in this movie are service members stationed in Berlin (this was before the Wall fell, so there were Brit soldiers stationed there as well, thus explaining many of the Brit accents). We had an apartment, so some of the dancers came over to hang out and chat, to escape the hotel rooms, Finola Hughes being one of them, as well as Catherine Mary Stuart (my husband REALLY enjoyed escorting her around the base!). One of the dancers, named Dave, said the filming of the hell scene was just "magical." The costumes were pretty cheesey and poorly made; my husband probably still has the silver baseball cap he wore as a reporter and the silver epaulets... It was a lot of fun to be a part of and I'd love to have a copy of it (when I saw it on TV several years ago, I couldn't find myself in the crowd scenes!). It was great reading other comments about this movie -- I didn't think anyone else in the world knew about it!

I've been waiting for this movie all my life.until now,my favorite film musicals were "xanadu","voyage of the rock aliens",and "the pirate movie", but this one far and away exceeds them all.I'd heard about it for a few years,and finally got the chance to see (and tape) it.this was about three weeks ago,and i've seen it at least a dozen times since then.my friends have stopped coming over because i keep "subjecting" them to it,but i don't care,i'm part of the BIM family now.my coworkers have been giving me strange looks just because i walk around singing "popping power by the hour-SPEED","light my way child of love", the entire APPLE SONG,which i know by heart,and of course"hey hey hey bim's on the way".they may think i'm crazy,but i know someday Mr. Topps will come down and take me away in his holy pimpmobile.

If you are gay and of a certain age (as I am), you may remember a certain glossy "magazine of entertainment." This was AFTER DARK, which was the gayest non-porn magazine ever, and it was most popular during the 70's and 80's. People like Liza and Bette appeared on the cover, and lots of tasteful male nude and nearly-nude photos abounded. It was glitzy, heavily-mascared, skimpy underwear-clad, pre-AIDS fun.

That brings me to THE APPLE. Beyond the title number, set in Hell, which has to be one of my favorite bad rock movie free-for-alls (with horrid lyrics and extremely hard-working dancers), the "sex" number, with multiple beds full of women in slips and men in gold briefs, absolutely proves my point that this movie was merely a film transcription of the late, lamented AD.

If XANADU and GREASE 2 can be issued on DVD, why not a remastered and remixed wide-screen edition of THE APPLE? Call your local congressman or gay cult-film fan TODAY!

Vapid (largely due to the male lead's inability to act - not surprisingly, this was his only film), bizarre fantasy-musical-allegory. It gets points for its sheer audacity and the effort that was put into it - it was probably made on a relatively low budget, yet it manages to create a world of its own; apparently it was filmed in Germany, but it seems to be taking place on another universe altogether. For some reason, it reminded me of "Zardoz" (yes, and "Logan's Run" too): these movies are so bizarre that they belong in a league of their own, beyond "good" and "bad". Best song: "If you know how to be a ma-ster". (**)