I was very taken with
Livy [Olivia], I thought she had everything going for her in this fresh bubbly
way; she was worried about filming, but she got into it pretty soon.
Director, Val Guest
Within a decade Olivia Newton John would not only be telling John Travolta that he was the one she wanted but singing her way to Xanadu… but in the late 1960s the idea of her starring in a fantasy musical based on a hippy dippy plot was just a twinkle in someone’s eye.
This film wouldn’t last five seconds in the UFC of modern film criticism whether it was staged on the White House lawn or in a carpark in east London and yet… and yet we owe it to ourselves to try harder. Steven Speilberg recently had a go about reinstalling the “wonder” into the business of first contact but this film starts from the point of view that this is a given. The irony is that this was seen as a post-Monkees pre-fab four by, Don Kirshner, one of the men who pulled that disparate group of actually very talented musicians together (and Davey Jones who could dance and act…) and who’s co-creator, Bob Rafelson (plus his screenwriting and acting buddy Jack Nicholson) had released the cinematic suicide note that was the on-the-nose polemical anarchy of Head (1969) which is as knowingly cynical as this film is sweetly optimistic.
“… we’re just too much, we’re TOO-morrow!”
Toomorrow sits somewhere
between the Cliff Richard movies of the early 60s, those featuring Joe Brown,
Marti Wilde and the Dave Clarke Five and the children’s TV of the early 70s… The
Tomorrow People, Double Deckers and HR Puff ’n stuff. It
doesn’t have the star power of finesse of A Hard Day’s Night or a Help!
But it does have Olivia Newton John who by the time it was eventually released
was on her way to solo success with early hits such as I Honestly Love You.
Give Me Love and Take Me Home. She also has undeniable screen presence here and
has more star power than her other three bandmates combined – that not to damn
them just a mark of her presence.
It's not a question of being so bad it’s good, there are some genuinely impressive things not least the production quality, special effects and designs that under pin the science fiction aspects so well and a lively cast who you side with no matter how arcane their dialogue and the feeling of zero chemistry as a group. Film as history, history as film – it matters as much for the 1960s as for the silent era and this film, being just 40-odd years after The Jazz Singer is far closer to Jolson than Jackson, or Taylor’s The Era Tour… there’s a modern day Olivia Newton John for you?
Now for the groovy precis and it’s tinged with
the weary cynicism of an alien Alphoid called “John Williams” played by the
great Roy Dotrice, who has been watching Earth for three thousand years and
frankly got a little bit bored of so little happening. But something has
happened and it’s his colleagues on an orbiting space ship who have picked it
up, the first signs of something infusing the music of this world that actually
makes them feel. Now, if this wasn’t so close to Stephen Spielberg’s empathy
point I wouldn’t be so shocked…
Galactic Control, who can only produce soulless electronica only without coherent beat, themes and, soul... are interested in a new sound being produced by Olivia and her pop band "Toomorrow", from sonic vibrations emitted by their special amplifier, a "tonaliser" - a processor attached to a Hammond organ that the Floyd would have killed for! Mind you, they had better songs!
So... the aliens kidnapp the band and aim to get them to restore the lost chord of they space soul music... but will the guys be cool with living in space and never shopping in Granny Takes a Trip every again? What a bummer??
“If this antiseptic crew
had really dared to set foot on the stage of the Round House during a pop
festival, dressed up like canaries and singing their cute songs of love and
tears, they would have been booed, quite deservedly, off it again."
Whatever the circumstances it is genuinely a thrill to see the Roundhouse as it was in the late 60s even if it’s not Syd’s Floyd, Soft Machine or The Pretty Things playing there. It’s more corporate these days… ticket offices and toilets… safer too! But the above reviewer is right in suggesting the disconnect between the location of counter-cultural grooves and this bubble gum pop. ONJ is a proper musician but she never stood in with Hendrix, the Incredible String Band or Steve Howe’s Tomorrow on that stage.
Groovy spage-age features!!
·
Restored
in 4K from the original camera negative and presented in High Definition
·
Audio
commentary by pop music historian Andrew Sandoval
·
Tomorrow Night in London (1969, 5 mins):
London swings – but gently – in this patchouli-permeated promo film for the
world’s coolest capital
·
The Nose Has It! (1942, 8 mins): silly little Arthur Askey
mucks about with hankies in this wartime winner from Val Guest
·
The Guardian Interview: Val Guest (1998, 62 mins):
Guest revisits his career in this onstage retrospective interview
·
The British Entertainment History Project: Val Guest (1988, 10 mins):
candid reflections upon Toomorrow’s troubled genesis, accompanied by
rare promotional images from the BFI National Archive
·
If I Could Turn You On (1969, 13 mins): US
troupe Living Theatre rouse London hipsters at The Roundhouse with a
provocative interactive performance
·
Chimp-Mates: Alice Goes Pop! (1975, 17 mins):
Public Funk Chimpanzee No. 1 Alice picks up her sticks and kicks out the jams
for a Children’s Film Foundation extravaganza
·
Toomorrow: Musical Humanism Through the Stars (2026, 12 mins):
extraterrestrial encounters of the groovy kind via this video essay by Celeste
de la Cabra
·
**FIRST
PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the
film by Matthew Hild, on Val Guest by the BFI’s Dr Josephine Botting and an
essay by Jay Rathbone on manufactured pop groups, plus notes on the
special features and film credits
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