The Smiley Smile Message Board

I'm talkin' aboout the 1990 made for tv movie.  They have this movie on fye for around $4, I'm thinking of buying with one of my old gift cards.  I haven't seen it since around 2001 when it was being shown on VH1( movies that rock), so I don't remember much, except for the denny scenes and the cocaine sessions.  How does it handle the smile era?    Also, did it have the rights to original music?

My $.02: It's garbage. It isn't worth a thing, other than the same kind of tragic-comic humor that one gets from the BW/Gold "autobiography." It is laughably bad.

You can search "Summer Dreams Beach Boys" and find it on youtube. I recommend you refresh your memory before buying it.

maybe I'll skip it.

Although inaccurate, I enjoyed it. :p

God Bless the fake-ass beards.

Plus,Dennis looking like a child molester
(http://www.brucegreenwood.com/mov-tv/summer/sd1bs.jpg)


although, if you consider him & Shawn... :police:

It's good on one thing and that is the friendship between Brian and Dennis.

yeah, it does a better job of the denny/brian relationship than American Family....but the Smile era isnt touched....

Good Vibrations, not even in the movie....Brian just gets burnt out and grows a beard in 1967?!?!? and just "sits there in the corner listening to the sgt. pepper album" as the other guys watch Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop Show and are weirded out by it...

It's pretty bad; very shoddily handled and totally inaccurate.  Plus we're treated to "Dennis" performing a song he never wrote. 

I have this on tape and to answer one of your questions, no it doesnt have original music. So the actors sing the parts (and boy are they bad!!). But if you want a good laugh (as this movie gave me) then I recommend it, but just dont expect anything too spectacular. Just watch it knowing how much of a joke in terms of accuracy the movie really is and just approach the movie light-heartedly because if you expect it to be a great overview of the band then you'll be dissapointed. An American Family (the other TV movie) is MUCH better in my opinion.

My favourite quote ever in the whole thing is in that sequence; the incredibly badly dubbed "Hendrix" speech from the tv:

"SURF MUSIC IS DEAD!"

Never fails to make me laugh. Wrong on so many levels.

Call me crazy but the Murry in Summer Dreams was much more convincing than Kevin Dunn.

i feel like so many favor the SD Murry than Kevin Dunn, why is this? I thought Kevin Dunn was really really good...he actually had real lines that Murry said...and Two Step Side Step...dont get me started  ;)

"Summer Dreams" is worth it for the camp value.  I wouldn't pay $10, but $4 is about right.  I didn't care for "American Family" at all,  particularly Part 2.  Part 1 isn't bad, but they had a vastly larger budget than SD to get those early '60s details right, and it shows ($20 million for that miniseries, versus probably a tenth or less of that to make "Summer Dreams," an average TV movie budget for that time).  Take them both with a grain of salt.  Both have Brian in bed as of 1967.  I much prefer the "Summer Dreams" Brian actor.  The guy who played him in "American Family" was totally unsympathetic and very bad in the role,even beyond the crap he was made to do by the script.  I also like Bruce Greenwood, though I'm not sure he made a good Dennis.

I'm a fan of Bruce Greenwood, just because he didn't make a good Dennis. :lol Now, whenever one of his movies is on tv, I always stop to watch.  :smokin

Which one contains the part where Brian goes to a Capitol meeting with a tape recorder? Is it Summer Dreams or American Family?

American Family.

Thanks!  :) I was just asking because I remember seeing a BB movie when I was about 9 or 10, and this scene stuck in my mind... At the time I didn't understand English very well, so I'm searching for this particular movie just as a "souvenir" from one of my earliest encounters with the BB world. (not the best one in retrospect!  ;D)

I was just watching this on youtube and you know what, that guy looked exactly like Mike Love. 

Did the Beach Boys really have a fake panel rigged up for Murray that didn't really work?

That's been said to be the case. I think Murry did real work, gettin them to sound trebley etc., but the story has gone around for years and I think Nik Venet started it. Really he was a bad source.

American Family is my first encounter of the Beach Boys too! By the way I always thought that Kevin Dunn was WAY more effective as Murry than the Summer Dreams Murry. But I agree I dont like the Brian in American Family. But I think Mike and Murry look pretty realistic in American Family whereas the actors in Summer Dreams look pathetic (on the whole), especially Carl... who casted him as Carl?? If I saw that Summer Dreams movie first (thankfully I didnt) I would have thought "man these guys are gay" whereas luckily I saw An American Family and thought "wow, these guys are really cool and weird". And yes it had Brian acting like a weirdo too early in the piece but that just made me want to go and learn about this weird band. And I think I am right in saying that there is much more (though still ridled with errors) historical accuracy in An American Family, would that be right (I mean, Im guessing here, but does anyone agree?) I guess you could say I have a soft spot for An American Family ;)

Yeah there's a lotta sh*t wrong with this film. The way they looked in certain years in the film isn't what they looked like in reality in those years and that fucking irritates me. Bruce Greenwood doesn't look like Dennis at all, the guy that played Brian didn't look like him, the guy that played Carl didn't look like him even slightly. And Bruce doesn't get any acknowledgment whatsoever in the movie. I went and bought it recently on dvd cuz I hadn't seen it in years and I still get irritated by a lotta the sh*t that they fowled up. And yeah Good Vibrations wasn't even mentioned; most of the film was about Dennis and his downfall.  ???

Chuck Britz confirmed it more than once.

It is entertaining primarily due to how awful it is.  Lots of facts are distorted and mixed up.  John Stamos produced a different Beach Boys tv-movie for ABC but that one isn't much better. 

And I have just realized that I've replied to this thread twice! 

this movie is more focused on Denny than the band.  I liked An American Family much better, not to mention all the actors chosen to play the characters were spot on, they looked almost exactly like each character in American Family, well perhaps except for the BLONDE Van Dyke Parks  :o.......I don't know who did the casting on Summer Dreams, obviously they didn't know what the BB's looked like, except for maybe the girl who played Karen.
Carly

The 1990 movie is really a lot of fun, in a totally bad way. For those around me who I've shown the movie to, we often use quotes from the movie in conversation at random points for fun. There are some hilarious lines in the movie. "You're out of the band Buckwheat!",  "I can't have music in my head if I'm always on the road!", "Duh, Al!", and a bunch of others. Plus, the fake beards are legendary. The Murry is actually pretty good, better than the 2000 movie version. Then there is the fake Dennis song. Al has like one or two lines in the whole movie (one of them is "Cool it Brian!" or something along those lines when Brian goes nuts on the plane.)

The 2000 movie is just more disappointingly bad. The first part of it wasn't that bad, but the second part was a travesty. The 2000 movie wasn't without its bloopers either. In one scene Mike's beard starts coming off but they used the scene anyway.

My favorite review of the 2000 movie said something alone the lines of "Apparently ABC is going to make a Beach Boys movie every ten years until they get it right." (The 1990 movie was also on ABC).

So I'm wondering if we should expect another one in about three years.

I don't know if that was just in the german synchronized version but at one point when Brian tells Dennis about his deaf ear, he says that he can hear every music only in stereo (!)...

I think Murry was great though and Mike was also well chosen, although the Mike from 2000's series was really looking like the original only with more hair. I liked Greenwood's performance but he doesn't look like Dennis. The fake-song was very beautiful btw. I think Brian was better played in "Summer dreams" than in the miniseries which show him as a complete idiot.

Did someone mention the beards? :o


http://www.brucegreenwood.com/mov-tv/summer/sd45.jpg

http://www.brucegreenwood.com/mov-tv/summer/smd8.jpg

"An American Family" is way better. Really a beautiful film. "Summer Dreams" is bad. Just love the scene when Mike and Dennis are fighting. *looooool*

The fake-song is pretty...

I don't enjoy any of the movies, because I can't relax. They get my blood pressure rising. I'm literally yelling at the TV "he didn't say that", or "that doesn't even look like him", or "that's not when that happened", or "this is embarrassing".

Give me a well done documentary any day...

I used the card to get a copy of endless harmony so no summer dreams for me I guess....

The beards were pretty incredible though.  Maybe they used the endless summer cover for inspiration.  If you can get it to the funeral scene on yutube, you'll see them.

Is that the funeral scene where Carl and Al are the only 2 Beach Boys there and then Carl thanks Al for coming, not sure if Al has a response or just kind of nods. Its tough to remember, he might have said something like "I wouldn't have missed it"...his character only had 2 or 3 lines all movies.

The real question is which Charles Manson is better....

I remember seeing Summer Dreams on TV twenty years ago and thinking how funny it was they cast Crispin Glover as the Wizard. I swear this guy at the 3 minute mark is doing Crispin Glover doing Charlie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5taTzrv400

American Family's Charlie, on the other hand, is pretty dull http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkJB6LSyTbo&feature=relmfu (4 minute mark)

WHAT? ...........Was there "An American Family" that I missed and was a beautiful film 'cause the one I saw was  horrible. The one I saw made Brian out to be a a complete dolt.

If this hadn't been made in 1990, I could swear it was Amy Poehler.

Despite how truly awful this movie is, it marked my first really big obsession with the band. I had liked them before but I loved them after this. I was 9 or 10 years old.

Paul J B - actually, both movies in their own ways made Brian look odd in their own ways...like in Summer Dreams how he dressed when he went to the beach to call Dennis home.

And in An American Family...they made him look like an absolute raging lunatic (that is, more than he probably really is in real life)...how he was obsessing over how Mike was looking at one of the girls on the set of the "California Girls" TV shoot...

I know. I thought they both sucked as do most people. I'm shocked that someone actually said "Family" was a beautiful film.

I mean, come on, the lipsync was terrible in that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1UqDnY7as

This is exactly the reason I got into the band in the first place.

I really dig Bruce Greenwood in this. I know he doesn't look or sound like Dennis but you can tell he cared about his performance and wanted the "Dennis" character to have some depth.

Or how about the way they portrayed David Marks leaving the band in An American Family?  If memory serves correctly he complained about having to carry his own equipment and then yelled out "I hate you, Murry!  I quit!"  When I first saw that I knew next to nothing about David but something told me that wasn't exactly how it went down...

The Brian in both movies was terrible.  I'd love to someday see a decent Brian Wilson biopic circa 1965 - 1967.   

Isn't Al about 6 feet tall in American Family??  :lol

The guy who played Mike in AF was uncanny in every way, even had the Love swagger! I think the guy in SD would make a good older Mike as he was a bit more "portly" shall we say. Dennis wasn't really captured that well in either film although I think both actors did try and get into the character but with someone as complex as Dennis was that's never going to happen really (same with Brian although his portrayal in AF is disgusting). Both Murry's were great I thought!

Bruce was mentioned, after the band says they had toured with Glen Campbell and they scoff about how he wants a solo career. Brian, in saying he no longer wants to go on the road, mentions Bruce as a replacement and cites the Rip Chords' Hey Little Cobra. The actor playing Bruce, natch, looked nothing like him, but at least they had him singing the right part in God Only Knows.

I agree. Other than making Brian look like a fool in part two, I love American Family.

An American Family was the first time I ever got to know the Boys. It was Summer 2012, the BB were in the middle of 50C, and I loved watching VH1 Classic. It happened be on one day, I watched it. It came on a few more times on TV, I knew I loved the Beach Boys. Personally, I love the film. SD is funny to watch, and AAF may not be the most accurate, but I still enjoyed the film, and I'm very thankful I choose to sit down that Summer day and watch TV, instead of actually go outside.

According to David, that's pretty much how it went down. Maybe not those exact words, but the tenor thereof.

You're out of the band, buckwheat!

(http://oi59.tinypic.com/24g3fb4.jpg)

Well, it was network tv; the real dialogue was probably 'you're out of the bad muthaf---er!"

(http://www.banana-and-louie.org/images/boobs.png)

This thread has made me go back to watch the movie and it made me think...it is awful, that I know and the beards are frankly inexcusable but the reason I don't think it's good is the absolutely massive narrative jumps. Whole years are jumped and massive segments are brushed over as if nothing, but that's not the films fault, how can you fit the rich and dense history of the beach boys into 120mins? I would struggle to tell the whole story in that time with just words let alone all the exposition and pacing required in a film.

 So how about this then....a 24-part American Series - those 24 40 minute episodes could really tell the story well and follow all the different characters paths with them all re-united for concerts now and again.....obviously I'm biased as a fan but I think it could really work!

"Summer Dreams" is awesome as camp. That's about it.

Especially now that we have "Love and Mercy" (where they wisely choose not to try to cram all the years in), we don't need anymore actors trying to portray their story.

We need a "Beatles Anthology" style long-form documentary on the band, and it needs to be done soon while the remaining members can still sit down and do extensive interviews.

I really need to see this film, just for the camp value (I know it's on Youtube and I'll watch it sometime). Would be a gas if they got the rights (perhaps at a fire sale rate?) and put it as an Easter Egg gag on the Love & Mercy Blu-ray  ;D

I'd love to see a full Beatles Anthology type documentary on The Beach Boys.  Even at 2 hours, I thought Endless Harmony really just scratched the surface. 

I'm also hoping for some sort of video anthology, with a collection of vintage TV clips / promotional films.  And maybe some more vintage concerts.  From the clips on Endless Harmony, I know there's tons of great footage in the vaults.  I'd rather see some extensive DVD releases before another box set of with one CD of unreleased material and four CDs of hits, album tracks, remixes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaugccN6njk

The comment by Jay Levy sheds some light on the fake Dennis song.  

The guy who played Mike was spot-on casting.  The actor even went bald like Mike and could probably still play him today!

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/bigbangtheory/images/b/b2/Headshot2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130814013205

I'm probably the one person who wasn't blown away by "Love and Mercy", but I won't go into that here. But agree, we need a good video history of the band, at least  hours - the Beatles got 8 hours for basically the years 1960-1970; the BB's career was much longer, and there's no lack of footage to use.

If I may, what didn't you enjoy about L&M?

I enjoyed the 60's stuff, in the studio; the portrayals of the other Beach Boys were more developed than what I'd seen in the other bio-pics, not just cardboard cutouts. But the 80's stuff? Well, for one, you got the impression from this film that Brian wasn't making any music then, wasn't performing with the Beach Boys...I think it would have been cool to have some scenes of Brian in the studio with Andy Paley and others, working on Melt Away, Rio Grande....I think it's amazing he went through all he went through and was still able to create incredible music like that. And I felt like the film downplayed Carl's efforts at getting Brian away from Landy. I know, it wasn't about that, it was a love story. It wasn't a movie about the Beach Boys. So I still think a good film could be made about the group, although I would prefer an Anthology style film.

I agree with the Carl part for sure, but I guess cutting out alot of the 80s backstory was strictly a formatting/timing thing

Brian's story - or the group's story - is something that really can't be done in 90 minutes/2 hours. Endless Harmony did a pretty fair job, but there's so much that had to be left out. And I hate that these types of flims/dvd's always give the impression that Brian was not in the studio after Smile. I look at the song credits on the late 60's albums, and he is still all over them as writer, singer, producer - but he didn't completely dominate as he had before. And I think that was a good thing - Dennis and Carl got to develop as songwriters and producers, we got to hear what Al and Bruce could do.

I'd love to see a genuinely independent doc on the band. Not a "warts and all" horror story, but not a fanboy flick either. Something that tells the story in a properly balanced way that's fair to the band without wrapping them up in cotton wool. Chances of the band allowing sufficient access for that to happen are as slim as my bank balance…!