Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

ptb-8 Fox must have had very big hopes for this documentary by Susan Winslow. She had previously produced BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME for Phillipe Mora which married 30s newsreel and mostly Warner Bros movie footage to gramophone songs of the period...a bit like PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, but as a narrative and narration free jigsaw puzzle of depression era imagery. She later produced the superb documentary on George Stevens: A FILM MAKERS JOURNEY which you must see for a definitive look at this great director's career. This time round, mid 70s and post THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT and just after TOMMY and its retro Brit rock success, somehow the idea to have The Beatles chart-hit songbook narrate World War 2 via Newsreels and 40s era Fox movies must have seemed like a great cocaine boardroom fueled possibility. So the context to create this film was definite and legitimate. It opened in Australia in the same huge 70mm Cinerama screen palaces that screened big Fox pix like The Poseidon Adventure or Butch Cassidy. I saw it at The Plaza Sydney which was the 1200 seat Imax style Spanish galleon plaster palace design - home of those pix above as well as long run reserve seat roadshows like Lucky Lady, and Mad Mad World. The opening salvo of Battleships Beatles and Blitzkreig in mega 6 track magnetic stereo through whopper speakers was enough to derail the subway below and send the audience to Jupiter. What followed was such a bizarre but strangely compelling visual and aural collision that it seemed so ambitious and ugly that it worked. I think there was only about 20 people at that session. It lasted a week or so and was quickly sent into storage. Even a few years later I ran it at my holiday resort cinema without even a wisp of curiosity or possibility that it might become a cult item. Probably it is a noble failure that might now be watchable for half an hour or so, but like BROTHER/DIME it became tiresome after 40 minutes when you realized, ironically, Peggy Lee style 'Is that all there is?". No story, just newsreel - Beatles MTV.

amontalv It's a fantastic film. I had the chance of listening to the music, first and the I went o see the movie and both experiences were great, something that I'd really like to repeat sometime again. I strongly recommend it. The atmosphere created by the director and the songs are really well matched with the II World War scenario. May be I got stuck on the music, because the performers are really great, just to name a few: Rod Stewart, Leo Sayer, Jeff Lynne, Elton John, Ambrosia, The Bee Gees, Keith Moon, Richard Cocciante, and the London Symphony Orchestra, it's really great! Maybe now the film is available on DVD, is it? And I'd be very pleased if you could tell me: Where can I get the soundtrack on CD? Sincerely, Álvaro

Varlaam I saw this oddity once upon a time at one of Toronto's oddest little theatres, The Screening Room, which no longer exists. The room is still there, over the Kingsway Cinema, but it doesn't operate as a theatre anymore.This would have been in 1979 or 1980, and they were showing a double bill of blasphemous Beatles films, this one and the Bee Gees' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978). We knew the Bee Gees would be an embarrassment, but we had greater hopes for this film. (And the Bee Gees were free if you bought a ticket for the other one, as I recall.)It was certainly a relief to learn that the Allies won World War II but otherwise... The combination of sacrosanct Beatles tunes and wartime stock footage didn't sound like such a good idea, and when you actually saw it, it turned out to be even more ridiculous than you would have guessed. The only image I still recall 20 years on is one of the "famous" ones, "Get Back" being sung over German tank footage run in reverse. As the philosopher said, "It's a fine line between clever and stupid."But it was better than the Bee Gees!

lupita I remember when this movie came out, and begging my parents to drive me to the theatre to see it. I willl admit, you have to be a fan of the Beatles and into WW2 history to really get into this movie. I am not lying when I tell you that I'm staring at the album soundtrack right now on my shelf in front of me. I could never figure out why they have never released this movie out on video, being that so many 'stinkers' are thrown on the shelves every year. I will admit, when I went to see it (over 20 years ago), there were few people in the audience at the theatre. But the way that the music is in sync with the film footage was really great, but I'm relying on a twenty year old plus memory of the film.