Pictured above: Promotional poster of the movie Merseyside Summers: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Soon after releasing Merseyside Summers and performing All You Need is Love on June 25th during the Our World international television broadcast, United Artists was pressuring The Beatles to work on a new movie to fulfill their three-movie contract, to which Paul McCartney suggested a movie adaptation of Merseyside Summers.
"Sure I'll admit I had the idea in the back of my mind while making the album, but United Artists contacting us to do another movie was really the push I needed. For the script I did most of the work in terms of the story, however, I also got some help from Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal. Richard Lester directed most of the movie, although the animation parts were directed by George Dunning. It was quite an ambitious project, especially considering we wanted to combine animation and live-action footage, which was actually Ringo's idea. Whole project cost like 300 hundred thousand pounds. But it sure did pay off in the end, (laughs)."
- Paul McCartney, 1981
The movie closely followed the story of the album, albeit many new tracks were made to flesh out the story, including introducing the concept of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, of which the main character Billy Shears (played by Ringo) would be a part of. The other Beatles played relatively minor roles in the movie otherwise, with John Lennon playing Mr. Kite, Paul McCartney playing the role of a roadie for the band, and George Harrison serving as a spiritual advisor for Billy Shears after the loss of his daughter.
"At first, they were a bit confused, thinking 'How on Earth will it star all four of us if it's about one person?'... Well at first I was gonna do the role of Billy, then we decided to give Ringo a shot, and he fit a lot better for the role. The rest of us played other slightly less important characters in the movie, but we all had at least one full scene with a full song including us."
- Paul McCartney, 1981
Unlike the previous two Beatles movies, the music was the main driving force of the story, with barely any in-between dialogue. The cast of the movie was as follows:
Ringo Starr - Billy Shears Jr.
John Lennon - Mr. Kite
Paul McCartney - Sgt. Pepper's Roadie
George Harrison - Spiritual Adviser
THE SHEARS FAMILY:
Dudley Frankenson - Billy Shears Jr. (childhood scenes)
Victor Spinelli - Billy Shears Sr. (Billy's father)
Jessie Robins - Martha Shears (Billy's mother)
Raquel Welch - Rita Shears (Billy's wife)
Julie Dawn Cole - Lucy Shears (Billy's daughter)
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND:
Ray Brooks - Pitt the Infant (French Horn/Lead guitar)
Brian Wilson - Winston O'Boogie (Bass)
Michael Crawford - Harry Campbell (Keyboardist and Multi-instrumentalist)
OTHER CHARACTERS:
Peter Cushing - Teacher
Leo McKern - Record Executive
Patrick McGoohan - Mr. Reeds (Strawberry Fields head person)
"I was kind of surprised Paul asked me to play... what was his name again? Winston O'Boogie, in the Merseyside Summers movie. The most acting I did up to that point was music videos. It was really like one huge music video, to be honest. I didn't have that many lines anyways, so it was fine."
- Brian Wilson, 2012
"Truth be told, this was probably the most avant-garde project I have done, and I feel like it wouldn't work any other way."
- Peter Cushing, 1985
"It was George's (Harrison) idea for me to be in the film, believe it or not, him being a big Prisoner fan, he figured that having me in the film would be a treat, and to me, it pretty much was."
- Patrick McGoohan, 1994
"It's funny, most films I was in at that time had me dressed in all sorts of skimpy clothing, yet, this one had me wearing these beautiful dresses, and a pretty stylish meter maid outfit."
- Raquel Welch, 2010
"Merseyside Summers, oh boy. That was my first and only acting gig. I and my parents were quite a fan of The Beatles' music, and when I saw an ad on the paper for them looking for a kid to play a role in The Beatles' latest movie, we jumped on it immediately. I only met Paul and Ringo during recording though, but it was still a really fun experience. I still like the movie to this day and I'm definitely going to show it to my kids soon."
- Dudley Frankenson, 1995
The order of the songs in the movie is as follows, with (*) indicating songs that weren't in the Merseyside Summers album:
- A Beginning / Good Morning Good Morning
- Penny Lane
- Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!
- All Together Now*
- Getting Better
- Fixing a Hole
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (abridged)*
- Lovely Rita
- When I'm Sixty-Four
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Your Mother Should Know*
- Magical Mystery Tour*
- Hey Bulldog*
- Only a Northern Song*
- She's Leaving Home
- The Fool on The Hill*
- Flying*
- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
- I Am the Walrus*
- Blue Jay Way
- Within You Without You
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band*
- With a Little Help From My Friends
- It's All Too Much*
- A Day in The Life
"In terms of new songs for the Merseyside Summers movie, some were outtakes from the album, like Only a Northern Song and Sgt. Pepper's, but a lot of them were recorded just for the movie and as singles, like Hey Bulldog, I Am the Walrus and It's All Too Much."
- George Harrison, 1981
After recording about three hours of live-action footage, The Beatles took a backseat overlooking the editing and animation of the film, as well as finishing recording the songs from the movie.
The single Hello, Goodbye, with B-side Hey Bulldog was released on November 24th, 1967. Merseyside Summers: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (often abbreviated as Merseyside Summers) was released on Boxing Day, 1967 in the UK and on January 4th in the US and the rest of the world. The soundtrack album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on the same respective dates, with all the new songs from the movie and an extra track called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise). The album was released on both vinyl and ELP formats.
"I'm gonna be honest, Sgt. Pepper's is more of a soundtrack album than anything. There are some good songs in there, but it's not exactly essential Beatles. The cover is great though, we had the whole cast pose for a group photo as well as a bunch of cardboard cutouts and wax figures of a bunch of different people - actors, sportsmen, scientists, political figures, musicians - George actually requested that the gurus from the Self-Realization Fellowship showed up... and well, I ended up requesting Syd Barrett myself. We kept in touch during the movie's production and he actually visited recording like once or twice."
- John Lennon, 1968
The Sgt. Pepper's cover soon became an iconic part of pop culture, being parodied multiple times, most notably by Frank Zappa's The Mothers of Inventions' 1968 album We're Only In It For The Money.
"I thought the cover was the funniest thing someone has ever done up to that point, made me buy a copy in fact!"
- John Lennon, 1970
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Side A
- 01. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2:02) [1]
- 02. With a Little Help From My Friends (Movie Version) (2:32) [4]
- 03. All Together Now (2:10) [2]
- 04. Hey Bulldog (3:08) [2]
- 05. Only a Northern Song (3:24) [2]
- 06. Your Mother Should Know (2:30) [3]
- 07. Flying (2:15) [3]
Side B
- 08. Magical Mystery Tour (2:50) [3]
- 09. The Fool on The Hill (3:00) [3]
- 10. I Am The Walrus (4:30) [4]
- 11. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (1:16) [4]
- 12. It's All Too Much (6:24) [4]
Released: December 26th, 1967
Track sources:
[1] - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967
[2] - Yellow Submarine, 1969
[3] - Magical Mystery Tour, 1967
That sounds like a wonderful movie! Maybe the one to perfectly encapsulate the Summer of Love decades on!
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