Beatlemania (1981)

In a careful opening disclaimer, the four young men who star in Beatlemania are “not the former members of the musical group known as The Beatles.”

This laughable announcement is made for legal reasons, not aesthetic ones, because anyone fond of the real Beatles will immediately spot the fraudulence of the enterprise.

Beatlemania was a horror on stage, and it’s even more of a horror up close, where the seams really show. This isn’t a loving impersonation, or even an honest one. It’s cheap, disingenuous and loathsome.

Beatlemania is more about its audience than The Beatles, who, of course, were not willing participants in this venture.

While the four Beatles stand-ins launch perfunctory versions of Beatles hits, the extraneous footage recalls the viewer’s lost youth and the audience is encouraged to cheer for the things they used to dig, and boo the things they didn’t.

Richard Nixon gets boos (which isn’t surprising), and there are cheers for Dustin Hoffman, Janis Joplin, marijuana and LSD.

But about Selma, Alabama, about Vietnam, the audience doesn’t seem to care.

The film uses random imagery – such as Marvel superhero drawings during the opening credits or mismatched historical clips over the songs. It’s less a movie than a pep rally, and such a mindless one that it draws bigger cheers for Timothy Leary than for the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

But Beatlemania isn’t just cavalier – it’s pretentious, too. The film is divided into segments with names like ”The Coming,” ”Listening” and ”Bottoming Out.” And the songs are illustrated by montages so gimmicky and senseless that there’s little point in trying to make head or tail of them.

Eleanor Rigby accompanied by footage of a plane on a runway and some splashy paintings? Far out, or at least somebody’s idea of same.

Dancers in college-kid outfits, pantomiming lovers’ farewells at a railway station, to the tune of We Can Work It Out? One quickly stops pondering the logic of such things.

As for the look-alikes, the (right-handed) Paul (Mitch Weissman) rolls his eyes as Paul did, and the Ringo (Ralph Castelli) is wisely kept off-camera most of the time. The George (Tom Teeley) looks more like a young Keith Richard, which may come in handy if Stonesmania ever comes around.

Once they don wigs for the long-hair section of the piece, the John Lennon look-alike (David Leon) is particularly unconvincing.

Nothing is said about the murder of the real Lennon, so if the movie has a single touch of good taste, there it is.

The film was overwhelmingly panned by critics and has largely been relegated to an obscure pop-culture curiosity.

Watch out for a very young Christina Applegate and Gina Gershon who appear early in their careers as dancers.

Paul McCartney
Mitch Weissman
John Lennon
David Leon
Ringo Starr
Ralph Castelli
George Harrison
Tom Teeley

Director
Joseph Manduke