The Top Five Most Sixties Rock N Roll Movies
A Hard Day’s Night is a stone cold classic. A surprisingly wry satire directed by Richard Lester and starring the Fab Four, this comedy holds up surprisingly well sixty years on - very much emblematic of its time, but on the strength of its filmmaking and the charisma of the Beatles, also timeless. It also inspired a whole slew of sloppy, all-over-the-place imitators that fail to transcend their moment… Pure 1960s insanity - so disposable that that anyone who saw one of these flicks in the theater must have wondered whether they’d imagined the whole thing…
5. Hold On! Starring Herman’s Hermits
It’s possible that there has never been a band more “of its time” than Herman’s Hermits. “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am” is still a killer cut. If anyone remembered it, the jury would still be out on their feature film Hold On!, though. Cram-packed with topical references to NASA’s Gemini Program, hypersonic jets, and the British Invasion, Hold On! screams 1966 with the same intensity of a teeny bopper at Shea Stadium:
Via Wikipedia:
When the children of American astronauts choose "Herman's Hermits" as the "good luck name" of the next Gemini space capsule,[1][2] NASA scientist Edward Lindquist is sent by U.S. State Department official Colby Grant to shadow the band on tour.[3] His orders are to find out all he can about them to stave off a "P.R. nightmare". (Grant fears that putting the band's name on the rocket will make the world think the U.S. is "still a colony of Great Britain".)
4. The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini starring Nancy Sinatra
The seventh and last in the storied line of Beach Party movies, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini is a real spectacle. The original Beach Party had made a splash in 1963. It was a cheesy film, lended authenticity by the presence of Dick Dale and his Del Tones. Three years later, the surf genre had been played out, and American International Pictures, the film’s producers, were casting about wildly for a new hook to keep the whole franchise going. They came up with a movie that paired Boris Karloff, a man in an ape suit… and Nancy Sinatra? You kind of have to see it to believe it:
Via Wikipedia:
The ghost of recently dead Mr. Hiram Stokeley (Boris Karloff) finds that he has 24 hours to perform one good deed to get into Heaven. He enlists the help of his long-dead girlfriend, Cecily, to stop his lawyer, Reginald Ripper (Basil Rathbone), and a henchman from claiming the estate for themselves. The real heirs, Chuck, Lili, Hiram's cousin Myrtle, and her son bring their beach party friends to the mansion for a pool party while Reginald Ripper also employs his daughter Sinistra, and J. Sinister Hulk's slow-witted associates Chicken Feather and Yolanda to help them terrorize the teens, while dopey biker Eric Von Zipper and his Malibu Rat Pack bikers also get involved in pursuing Yolanda for a share of the Stokely estate.
3. Dont Look Back starring Bob Dylan
Just because it is of its time, doesn’t mean it has to be a campy mess! D. A. Pennebaker’s Dylan-focused documentary is almost as iconic as A Hard Day’s Night. Just take the film’s iconic opening sequence:
And Weird Al’s satirical homage three decades later is a testament - if you needed one - to its staying power:
So much of what we think of as quintessentially Dylan is on full display in this film. And while I wouldn’t argue that this movie is scripted, in its own way, it is just as calculated as any of the fictional films on this list. Dylan - difficult, aloof, a locatious songwriter who is also a man of few words. Above all, he is authentic, true to himself, real and raw - so it makes sense that his rock movie would take the form of a carefully trimmed documentary. A Hard Day’s Night distills the essential truth of the Beatles’ undeniable charisma into film form - and Dont Look Back performs the same magic trick for Dylan - and it does so by tricking you into thinking that there’s no distance between the world’s most inscrutable pop star and you. It’s like you just got the chance to stare directly into the sun.
2. Head starring the Monkees
Wow.
All the style of Help!, but carried off with even less discipline - and way too much confidence. Aside from their novelty hits, the appeal of the Monkees is almost completely perplexing to modern eyes. It’s not that there’s nothing to love here, but Jack Nicholson’s script - allegedly written in a haze of pot and LSD - sounds exactly like it was written in a haze of pot and LSD. The individual members of the Monkees always seemed to have pretensions that they were as much artists as any of the Beatles - but this film doesn’t even leave them a television laugh track behind which to hide.
If all of that sounds harsh, let me assure you - I love Head. But let’s be real - which is self-satisfied tone, the constant impression it gives of saying something deep while it is saying nothing at all - this movie could not have been made in any other year than 1968.
If I may quote Mickey Dolenz’s drumhead, which sums up my whole argument better than I ever could --- “Drum.”
Via Wikipedia:
Head begins at the dedication of the Gerald Desmond Bridge. As a local politician struggles with his microphone during the dedication speech, The Monkees (Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith) suddenly interrupt the ceremony by running through the assembled officials to the sound of various horns and sirens. Micky then jumps off the bridge into the water below. He floats around, unconscious, as several mermaids attempt to revive him.
The scene then transitions into a living room, in which the Monkees are having a kissing contest with a young woman, who pronounces them all "even." Then the opening song plays, filling the screen with images from the film, and ending with the Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém followed by a woman screaming. However, the woman is not screaming in terror but in excitement, as the Monkees are about to take the stage at a concert. When the Monkees arrive, they lead the audience in a cheer of "WAR!"
1. A Rough Go of It starring the Rockroaches
The title describes The Rockroaches early life growing up in Kidney Pond - but the movie itself is nothing but fun. A glamorized depiction of being chased down by adoring teen-girls from one scene to the next, A Rough Go Of It did everything to sell the Rockroaches as the most wholesome British boys imaginable. Though it was far from the truth, the film was in line with teen films of the time such as Beach Party at Party Beach, Goodbye Allowance, Hello Fun, and I Was A Teenage Adolescent.
Set in Bloomington, Indiana, The Rockroach film was nothing more than a vehicle for their songs, with gimmicky comedy skits in between as the boys try to get from one gig to another in middle America. A Rough Go Of It was not the first zany comedy, but it did bring a certain British style of humor to young Americans in a big way.
Weirdly - perhaps because of the tragic circumstances surrounding its release - the film has languished in obscurity in recent years. It saw one bootleg Laserdisc release in the early 1980s, but has never been released on VHS, DVD, or Blu-Ray. Clips on YouTube are even hard to come by. But this season on Flashback to Never, we will be uncovering this lost classic - hopefully giving it its long overdue do.
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If this list has made you nostalgic for the good old days, when rock and roll was just plain fun - well, don’t get too wistful… On the Flashback to Never podcast, those good old days never came to end. Tune in every other week as we spin 45s from the Rockroaches, Joe Thoreau, and all the other favorites you never knew you loved!