It\u2019s the pop music equivalent of \u201cThe Star Wars Holiday Special,\u201d the variety show trainwreck from later that year that was similarly stricken from the official record by an aghast George Lucas. Both take place in that gaudy, bedazzled twilight time between hoary \u201cold showbiz\u201d vaudevillian traditions of early television and the sleek, empty gloss that would come to define 1980s entertainment. It really was a ghastly aesthetic \u2013 everything looks like varying kinds of moldering, aged cheese. With lasers. (Presumably because of Star Wars<\/em>, lasers were really big back then, especially \u201cpew-pew\u201d sound effects during songs.) The demolition derby of disparate sensibilities is how you end up with Earth Wind and Fire, Alice Cooper and Steve Martin all in movie that also features George Burns singing \u201cFixing a Hole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Burns plays Mr. Kite, who narrates Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em> as if he\u2019s not quite sure what he\u2019s talking about, either. There\u2019s not a word of spoken dialogue in the picture, leaving the rest of the cast to frantically bug out their eyes and wave their arms like mimes in distress while George Burns describes what they\u2019re doing. In the happy little town of Heartland, Peter Frampton\u2019s Billy Shears sings alongside the Bee Gees in a gazebo topped by a magical weathervane in the shape of Sgt. Pepper himself, a WWI hero whose horn somehow ended all the fighting. Billy romances his girlfriend Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina) and everything seems dandy until the boys sign with Big Deal Records \u2013 a nefarious organization that happens to have the same logo as Stigwood\u2019s RSO Records label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story is strung together out of stray lines from the 39 Beatles songs Stigwood had obtained the rights to. They\u2019d tried something similar on Broadway in 1974 with Tom O\u2019Horgan\u2019s \u201cSgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road.\u201d Some of the same principals were also involved in 1976\u2019s notorious All This And World War II<\/em>, in which a hit double album soundtrack of Beatles covers were accompanied by documentary combat footage of WWII, for reasons that have yet to be ascertained. The best story about that particular boondoggle was that Boston music critic Michael Fremer went to a screening after dropping acid and thought it was one of the most profound movies he\u2019d ever seen. Fremer dragged all the local critics and music industry professionals he knew to another screening the very next evening, only to realize ten minutes in that he had been high out of his gourd and the movie was actually terrible. He spent the rest of his career apologizing. <\/p>\n\n\n There\u2019s a sinister plot by mean Mr. Mustard and his henchman Brute to steal Sgt. Pepper\u2019s enchanted instruments from Heartland, plunging this sweet, little community into doom and despair. (Brute is played in his screen debut by the Twin Peaks<\/em> giant Carel Struycken.) The bad guys also kidnap poor Strawberry Fields and force her to listen to Aerosmith. This is supposed to turn her into \u201ca mindless groupie\u201d but Frampton gets there first, so he and Steven Tyler can have one of 1970s cinema\u2019s most poorly choreographed sissy fights. Bily manages to kill Steven Tyler but accidentally takes out Strawberry as well. This was the portion of the film I saw on television as an extremely young child, and the only thing I can remember about it was that I got really upset that the pretty girl died. (Even at an early age, I couldn\u2019t have cared less about what happened to Steven Tyler.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess this means that the first time I ever heard \u201cCarry That Weight,\u201d it was in regards to Peter Frampton carrying his girlfriend\u2019s glass coffin to the cemetery. Luckily that part didn\u2019t stick with me, otherwise I probably never would have listened to The Beatles. Frampton\u2019s Shears is so despondent, he attempts suicide by jumping off a one story building. But fear not, as that magical weathervane atop the gazebo comes alive in the form of Billy Preston \u2013 the fifth Beatle zapping laser beams out of his fingertips and reversing the course of Billy\u2019s fatal (or at least somewhat injurious) plunge and bringing Strawberry back to life. \u201cGet back, Loretta\u201d he tells the comely female Lazarus, who doesn\u2019t seem to think anything strange about being called Loretta, or, for that matter, being resurrected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This prompts a reprise of the title track in front of that gazebo again, this time with an insane cavalcade of famous and semi-famous guest stars singing along and glimpsed for such fleeting moments, it\u2019s a gift that the movie is on Netflix now so you can rewind to gawk at apparently everyone who was in Stigwood\u2019s Rolodex and had the afternoon available. Peter Allen, George Benson, Donovan, Jose Feliciano, Yvonne Elliman, Keith Carradine \u2013 Carradine\u2019s really into it \u2013 Tina Turner, Frankie Valli, Gwen Verdon, Helen Reddy, Dame Edna and Wolfman Jack, to name just a few. The forced conviviality of the finale is something to behold; in the New York Times<\/em>, critic Janet Maslin compared Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em> to \u201cplaying shuffleboard at the absolute insistence of a bossy shipboard social director.\u201d I can\u2019t think of a better way to describe what it\u2019s like to watch Carol Channing boogie with Sha Na Na.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is currently streaming on Netflix, for some reason. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n