Toomorrow (3½ Stars)

This film first hit the cinemas in 1970, and I've been trying to get my hands on it for years. Now it's finally been released on DVD. I'm slightly disappointed, it doesn't live up to what I expected, but it's an interesting film that I'll probably watch more than once. It's a curiosity, unique in film history.

This wasn't the first time a film had been made about a pop group. The Beatles had already done it a few times, starting with "A Hard Day's Night" in 1964. What makes this film different is that it was the first and only time a film has been made to launch a new group. The film was released simultaneously with their first album and single. Some reviewers incorrectly refer to their album as the film's soundtrack, but it's more correct to say that the movie was the album's "filmtrack", if such a word existed.

But they flopped. All three. The film, album and single were failures, and the group disbanded. Band members Vic Cooper, Ben Thomas and Karl Chambers faded into obscurity. Olivia Newton-John began a solo career which took off slowly in the early 70's, until she was finally propelled to international stardom when she appeared in "Grease" in 1978. The problem is that it was the wrong music at the wrong time. 1970 was a year of change. The soft music of the 1960's was giving way to the harder music of the 1970's. Toomorrow's music was firmly rooted in the 60's. Despite the use of a synthesizer they sounded like a typical 1965 pop group. Their style, their harmonies, and even their hair was outdated. It wasn't what teenagers of the time wanted to listen to.

The music was the reason for the film's failure. The story is good in itself, and the cheap special effects can be forgiven. An alien race is stagnating, so they attempt to kidnap the amateur band called Toomorrow to play music for them. We see the band members running round swinging London, with parties and concerts where everyone looked like relics from the 60's. Val Guest might have been a talented director of science fiction films in the 1950's and 1960's, but he knew nothing about the youth scene of 1970.

Olivia Newton-John fans will be disappointed. She doesn't play as prominent a role as the DVD cover suggests. Marketing!