Search - The Beach Boys - In London 1966 on DVD

"The Beach Boys: In London 1966" A "Sound" Opportunity Miss

Dan Lega | New York City | 05/13/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I received the new DVD, "Beach Boys: In London 1966", by mail yesterday. It's nice to have, but quite a bit disappointing, too. The most disappointing aspect? It has no sound! None whatsoever. I've been told by a Beach Boy archivist that he saw the original film recently and it all had sound on it. Hewas very surprised to hear that DVD has no sound.

In one sense I can see why they left off some the sound, it probably would have cost them a fortune to get the rights to have the Beach Boys music on the soundtrack. Also, the concert shots with sound would have turned out horribly because there are no shots of whole songs, only a snippet here and a snippet there.

One more thing on the sound -- didn't they mention in early descriptions online that it was going to be narrated by Keith Badman? Well, it most certainly is not. And they mention in the sparse liner notes that 18 minutes of the film was originally edited into a piece that was narrated by Marianne Faithful back in the day. Why couldn't they reproduce that? I guess it had music on it, and that's why it was going to be newly narrated by Keith Badman, without the music. But, that didn't happen. On the back of the DVD case it reads, "This film does not contain music, the film is presented as it was filmed." But that's apparently not true, since it was originally filmed with sound according to people who have seen the footage beforehand.

Another weird thing, I can't quite figure out why one portion is originally shown in black & white, and then later most of that, if not the whole portion, is shown in color. Weird.

I thought I recalled while reading the Badman "The Beach Boys: A Definitive Diary" day-by-day book that Peter Whitehead filmed the Beach Boys in many places. Yet it seems to be only a few different locations shown here. And all the concert footage looks as if it comes from the same venue.

Oh, well, it is nice for me to have, despite its flaws. But it's certainly a missed oppurtunity. I can only recommend it for very hard core Beach Boy fans.


Love and merci, Dan Lega
"

Rip Off

T. Muniz | Saratoga, California | 04/09/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"What do you call a dvd about the Beach Boys that HAS NO SOUND WHATSOEVER and shows Brian Wilson on the cover when HE IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ON THE DVD!! You call it a RIP OFF!"