Toomorrow (3 Stars)

After hearing about Olivia Newton-John's death yesterday I pulled one of her films off the shelf. I'd forgotten that the DVD is such bad quality. I stopped the film because I thought my sound system was playing up, but then I read that the DVD only has sound from one stereo channel. It sounds absolutely awful, especially over headphones. The picture itself is also poor quality, but I watched it for the sake of nostalgia.

The film's story would do Ed Wood proud. An alien race has been observing the Earth for thousands of years. They're waiting for mankind to evolve, but they've given up hope. Things change when they hear a London-based pop group called Toomorrow. They think that the group's melodies can invigorate their race and the rest of the universe.

They beam the group up to their space ship and ask them to play, but it doesn't work. The group says that they can only make good music if they have the right atmosphere, i.e. a concert audience. The aliens send the group back to Earth so they can play a concert at the Round House in London. After Toomorrow starts playing the band and the audience are all beamed up into space. The concert performance saves the universe.

The film was co-produced by Don Kirshner. He was so ashamed of the film that he denied he'd worked on it. Nobody believed him, so he did his best to prevent the film being seen again after its original limited cinema release. The film wasn't released on DVD until after his death. Let's be fair. The film isn't very good, but it's not bad either. It's a mediocre offering, but it's now been practically forgotten. It never received a cult following like "Zeta One" and other bad movies. Maybe that's the problem. A film has to be really bad to gain cult status, but "Toomorrow" isn't bad enough.

Incidentally, the group called Toomorrow really did exist. The four musicians, including Olivia Newton-John, play themselves in the film. The film was intended to promote them, and they would have continued if the film had been a success. The film flopped – it was never given a chance – so the band members went their separate ways..

Olivia Newton-John
26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022