Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
christopher-underwood
Wonderful is the obvious but apt accolade for this strangely obscure little gem made literally at the peak of what became known as 'Swinging London' or more generally the 'Swinging Sixties'. It looks absolutely fabulous with superb costumes and stunning sets. As for locations, I eventually tracked down the reservoirs at West Molesey as the primary source with Beesborough being the primary one and I assume the associated pumping station was that used both for the workplace scenes and the later rather manic cycle machine scenes. I had never realised the close connection between the Beatles and Roman Polanski but writer Gerard Brach (Cul de Sac, What? Fearless Vampire Killers and the film under discussion) seems to have been the main link, although actor Ian Quarrier and director Joe Masot were apparently big on the 'scene' during 1967 and 1968. George Harrison made considerable contributions to British cinema of the time but his more extreme Indian influences to this soundtrack are probably the only let down. Fortunately director Massot has assembled an alternative cut of the film using the original Wonderwall sessions and this makes for a much more acceptable viewing. Jack MacGowran, much favoured by Samuel Beckett but also appeared in Cul de Sac and Fearless Vampire Killers, is perfect in the role of obsessive mad professor cum obsessive peeping tom. Which brings us to Jane Birkin, who doesn't do too much in this (she doesn't even speak) but is 1967/68 London personified. She has that 'look', she can wear those clothes (or not) and moves with a grace that almost takes the breath away. Something between a butterfly and a gazelle. she floats through the film seemingly effortlessly, her role simply to move about with or without clothes and to 'react' to others. Fab film that captures perfectly a moment in time.
rokcomx
The epically wonky 1968 Wonderwall features music by George Harrison and psychedelic visual design by The Fool, that group of acid head techno artists who painted the Apple office building in the '60s and had much to do with the latterday Beatles imagery (I wonder if Magic Alex ever perfected his magic box?).The movie is so freakish, it's almost impossible to absorb - as an artifact of the 60s and hippie culture, and an example of some of the first Beatles "solo" music, it was well worth watching, and probably worth the high price that the limited edition U.S. region DVD sells for.The first thing that comes to mind, a few minutes after finishing the film, is "This must be what it's like to do peyote, throw up, and then spend two hours staring at your vomit and marveling at how wondrous and beautiful your former lunch now looks...." An aging nutty professor and OCD paper hoarder finds a peephole in his cluttered apartment that glows like starlight (set within a wall mural painting of a crowned goddess in the sky) - When he looks thru the hole, he sees an otherworldly beautiful oft-under dressed young woman named Penny Lane (played by lovely blank-faced cipher Jane Birkin, who was equally blank in Antonioni's equally obtuse movie Blow-Up).Penny Lane seems to be perpetually posing for 60s soft core porn mags, cigarette commercials, and stewardess ads, alone and/or with equally under dressed ladyfriends.One one side of the wall, the Old Prof's side, it's just another day, the barber shaves another customer, the banker looking in --- On the OTHER side of the peephole, it's the 24-hour freak out channel, with freak out music kicking in every time the old man peeps at the fetishistic nylon leg shows and Hefner-fueled/acid-soaked visions of a Wild and Wonky World According To Playboy.Opening more peepholes seems to open more worlds – or are these just the Old Prof's daydreams? In one trippy vision, the old Prof improbably sees himself, outdoors, battling a teenage Superman with "weapons" like giant ciggies and lipstick tubes. Or at an effeminate cowboy riding a plastic rocking horse and talking on the phone, or a hippie mermaid chick floating on a sea of polyester fabric while brushing her hair, or a Perplexing Planet of Preposterous Sunglasses.He peeps most often at an ongoing idyllic Dionysian hippie party jam, with flute-playing flower children and beautiful dancing gypsies (with almost EVERYone smoking something, either ciggies or ??). The smoking in various other wonder worlds ranges from small glass pipes to Chong-sized roaches and giant octopus hookahs – Amusingly, the Old Prof himself, in his world, is proudly a non-smoker --- tho one wonders about how lab-customized his beloved sugar cubes may be, given his increasingly bizarre visions thru the Wonder wall.The Old Prof becomes so obsessed that, for awhile, he seems to stop shaving or sleeping or doing anything else aside from peeping. Sorta presaging the advent of 500-channel TV feeds, it could be said --- When he strays too far from the wall - like when he goes to work at the lab one day, if only to study up on alternate realities and gaze lovingly at Penny Lane thru his microscope (?!)- he suddenly becomes black and white. As does the world around him. Only the wonder wall can color his world....At some point, one of the wonder wall visions appears to actually be the adjoining room of a young hippie couple - or is it? Everything on the Other Side is just a colorful and hallucinogenic as his other visions.When he realizes he's fallen in love with the young girl - or at least with her magical hippie wonderland - he manages to find a magic (Alex) doorway and dramatically leap into her world, apparently by dressing as a top-hat magician and fondling his magic wand (don't ask....) In summation – glad I watched it. Glad it was restored, especially the sonically engaging soundtrack, and glad it came out on DVD. Also glad the hippies – and Hollywood's brief trippy obsession with them – pretty much died with the Beatles.I'll probably never have occasion to spin this inexplicable trip-fest again, unless under the influence of the Old Prof's suspect sugar cubes, but I'm glad I finally got to checkout this funky flashback, 40 years after it first came and went -
Peter Whittle
'Wonderwall' was one of four 'alternative-cinema' films to debut at the newly opened:'CINECENTA' multi-complex off Leicester Square in January 1969. It had previously had its 'World-Premiere' at the Cannes Film Festival in 1968.The 'George Harrison' Soundtrack of Indian Ragas & etc. are the aural sound-sheet of a truly reprehensible plot with dull stupefyingly mind-numbing 'animated inserts'such as Butterflys escaping from a collectors album.The whole film seems to be a 'screen-test' for Jane Birkin.She wears coloured tights,Indian dresses,Sunglasses,& on & on............Jack MacGowran actually seems out-of-place in his admirable interpretation of a stuffy lonely Zoological Professor. The actual idea of a lonely bachelor peeping through a hole in a wall on his beautiful débutante neighbour is brilliant.The film doesn't make enough on this concept alone. The Film is too chic & it retains no style.Jane Birkin is flamboyant & exotic but she doesn't have a single word of dialogue.(Except some gibberish heard when the Professor eavesdrops).I assume this was intentional BUT a bad decision.Not hearing Jane Birkin speak makes her even more Kewpie-doll & a window-dressed mannequin throughout this movie. The 'Word-Cards' that were inserted should really now come out & the Director should issue a 'Director's Cut' taking out all the period 'animated-inserts' & politely asking MsBirkin to NOW add a voice-over in suitable places.Perhaps any additional footage could be restored because the film doesn't hold a strong enough allure.(Except of course la Birkin in nice poses!).
sfried
Well, I just saw a restored print of this at the Screening room. It is a marvelous piece, light and yet moving, filled with wonderful visuals, a great performance by Jack McGowran and a marvelous (and unfortunately out-of-print) score by everyone's favorite Beatle, George. The synopsis above just doesn't do justice to the film. Yes, it's about a daffy old guy who peers in on a lovely young woman living next door, but there's nothing creepy or pathetic about it. In fact, he's actually quite a bit a of a dashing and romantic figure in his own detached, weird way. One of the most notable things about the film is the art direction, done by the band/art collective The Fool. An obscure folk group (sort of a lesser Incredible String Band) they made the most of what was most likely a thin budget by pouring every ounce of energy into creating two amazing sets for the adjacent apartments of the old man and the young model. They are, without a doubt, two of the coolest looking places to live I have ever seen in a movie (I would give my eye-teeth to live in either one of those flats) and they form as much of a part of the main characters as the portrayal by the actors themselves. The old scientist lives in Celtic-Medieval warren, inspired by Pre-Raphaelite design, and the young model lives in a mod Sixties psychedelic/glam environment suffused with overtones of 20's/30's nostalgia. Both apartments then are filled with a yearning for the past and so, the old man becomes no more of a romanticist than the girl, despite his age. He is actually quite dashing in his cape and tuxedo when engaging in some of his later escapades, like some bandit out of a Fantomas picture. No, this movie isn't about a pathetic old guy lusting after a lithe young thing. It's about a few other things more interesting and perhaps more touching, but you'll have to find out for yourself. In any case it's a nice little treat worth finding, if you can.
