The Smiley Smile Message Board

     I received the new DVD, "Beach Boys: In London 1966", by mail yesterday.  (The cheapest price I found online is at NewEgg.com.)  It's nice to have, but quite a bit disappointing, too.  The most disappointing aspect?  It has no sound!  None whatsoever.  Don't most 16mm camera's come equipped to record sound?  And if not, there are shots in the scenes with Dennis and Al where you can see a sound man holding a microphone.  Did someone not save the tape if it was recorded on a separate machine?

     Unfortunately, in a couple of senses I can see why they left off the sound.  One, it probably would have cost them a fortune to get the rights to have the Beach Boys music on the soundtrack.  Secondly, if there was no sound on the film, but there was sound recorded separately, then the film is so disjointed, cuts here, cuts there, I can see how it would be near impossible to find the correct sound to go with each snippet of film.  But I do wish they had tried.  The concert shots would have been the easiest to sync up, I suppose, but then again, it would have turned out horribly because there are no shots of whole songs, only, again, just snippets. 

     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 narrated by Marianne Faithful back in the day.  Why couldn't they reproduce that? 

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

     Does anyone know who is the girl whose short skirt they have incredible fascination with?  (Not that I blame them.)  Is that Marianne Faithful?

     I thought I recalled while reading the Badman day-by-day book that Peter Whitehead filmed the 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 to have it, despite its flaws.  But it's certainly a missed oppurtunity.  It would also be nice to have copies of all the newspaper and magazine articles that are shown in one segment.  I think a lot of them are reprinted in "Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile", but not all of them.

       
           Love and merci,   Dan Lega

I do have the original 18 minute version, it has full narration by Marianne Faithfull(not the girl in the mini-skirt...that's a London model), bits of BB's music, and the odd bits, like Dennis and Al shopping have live sound...their conversation is great...but the concert bits were just covered over with BB's studio music, and they did a poor job of synching that in. Sounds like you've got the raw footage with no sound. I'd guess the B&W is the outtakes.

Ah, glad to see it's not just my copy...

I think they should notice things like that on the DVD cover... Cause nobody would expect a DVD to not have any audio at all...

Wow- thanks for the warning.

Are you sure it's not a defective pressing?

I viewed and inventoried all of those reels in London a couple of years back..... and there was sound on almost everything.

Is there anything listed on the DVD main menu page for "Audio Setup"?

Alan

     Unfortunately I'm pretty sure it's not a defective pressing.  On the back of the case, (I wish I could remember the exact wording), they write something semi-vague about this DVD being just raw film.  I did look for a menu page to see if there was an "Audio Setup", and there was none -- menu page, that is!  Well, there is a menu page, but it's a super bare bones minumum menu page like you find on DVD's that you make/burn yourself.  The only thing to click on is the film itself.  (I don't even know if it has "chapters" built into it.  I didn't try.)  This disc was manufactured on the supercheap, apparently.  What a shame that the film has audio on it, but they chose to leave it off.  Like I said, if the audio had only been done on a separate NAGRA audio machine, I could understand the trouble syncing it up.  But if the film has sound, then why leave off the talking bits?  Unfortunately, I understand not presenting the music, as I'm sure that would have cost them a lot of money.  But surely the talking wouldn't have cost them any extra, would it?

        Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The only place I can find the disc is on eBay but I don't want to spend $25.  Any place else I can find one? Amazon doesn't have it for some reason.

    As I said, the cheapest I found online was at Newegg.com, and it was right around $25.  So it doesn't look like you can find any cheaper, right now.  Maybe in a few months the price will go down considerably?  Or maybe it will go out of print and you'll have to pay an exorbitant fee?   ::)


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

Heres' the Amazon listing- apparently set for release on or about Pet Sounds' 40th birthday:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EQ5SFC/qid=1147466394/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-9172633-8540964?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130

Dan, do the world a big favor and be the first person to write an Amazon review.  You can just c. & p. your original post.

I don't think it's defective Dan I have the same footage only I've had my copy for a few years now so it's not on DVD but VHS and mine has no sound either. 

I'm confused.

If there's no sound, no music, and no Keith Badman or Marianne Faithful narration, what is it? A completely silent movie? Did they just put MIDI BB's sound-a-like music on it?

      Yes, it's completely silent.


               Love and merci,   Dan Lega

      I took your suggestion and posted my revised review on Amazon.com.   The only significant thing added is the line from the back of the DVD...   

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.

       
          Love and merci,  Dan Lega

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"The Beach Boys: In London 1966"  A "Sound" Opportunity Missed!




     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.

       
            Dan Lega

FYI - the portion that's black and white is simply a "work print" (or "slop print") of some of the original color footage that was used by the film's original editor back in 1966-1967.  Back then, black and white film stock was much cheaper than color film.

I do not understand the politics in releasing this movie.

Doesn't the people owning the footage have anything to do with this dvd?
Crappo, such a waste releasing something attractive as this in such a horrible state..

The cover says that the film was bought directly from Peter Whitehead.

And about how to get the DVD: I just asked at a local record store if they could order it for me, and they did, for 20 euros. So you Americans should be able to get it for less.

Excellent work, Dan- I might have been the first reader to vote it "helpful".  I had meant to come back on here and suggest you edit slightly to reflect the additional information that turnbed up in this thread, and you did exactly that.  That's what Amazon reviews are for- you performed a great service for Beach Boys fans everywhere.

It's unconscionable that the product description that I assume was provided to Amazon didn't choose to come clean on such an important point.  They probably hoped to rack up a few thousand sales before the truth got out.

I will NOT buy this. Thankfully I have the original Marianne Faithful version that is great. The music is synched badly but its better then not having it. No sound no way

Well, of course you could just put on the DVD while you're listening to the Beach Boys...  :)

Does this DVD show the BBs buying a firehat for Brian?

No, it doesn't.