All This and World War II (1976)

The (few) negative reviewers here seem to have suffered from something of a 'But what's it for?' syndrome. It's understandable - the concept of this film is deeply odd.But for those who get over trying to puzzle out the rationale and concentrate on the result, it's a very enjoyable one. What this film IS, is what counts: WW2 newsreel footage is interesting to watch. So are clips from war movies. Good covers of Beatles songs by competent artists are interesting to listen to. But none of these, by itself, would be likely to sustain a viewer's attention for 88 minutes. So they stuck 'em all together, edited it to add a little continuity and connection between timeline, subject matter and lyrics, and made this film.For the majority, it seems to work strangely well. If any element flags, the others carry you along, and the gestalt somehow manages to be didactic, amusing and entertaining by turns.I first saw this in Cinerama back in the '70s, in a state of non-ordinary reality. It blew me away. I ran around for a few days assembling a group of like-minded friends, and we all got lightly toasted and went to see it the next week. Some clot in the projection booth screwed up most of the sound system, leaving what appeared to be an effects channel, a rear speaker producing newsreel mono, and only leakage music. The result was terrible. My chums were looking at me quizzically and equating my taste in entertainment with a haemorrhoid.Happily, the projection-room clot woke up sometime around the Battle of Midway and Elton's 'Lucy in the Sky', and the rest of the film played with all six channels as intended. My reputation was saved, but I still wanted to see the whole thing again, properly. Alas, the film was off by the next week. I'd love to see it again.But the experience has made me nervous about buying this film from specialist DVD sellers, in case the sound has been mixed or cut down. This film is an AUDIO-visual experience, and without the multi-channel sound it's a lesser thing. I know. I was that haemorrhoid.CD

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.

I saw this film when it came out around Christmas in San Francisco at the Vogue. Excellent film that was far ahead of its time in concept. From what I heard 20th Century Fox pulled the prints and stripped them of mineral/element content, including negatives after the film received such horrible reviews and died quickly at the box office.......any truth to this???

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.