I've written so much on this blog about how awful the 1978 Sgt. Pepper movie was that you are probably saying, "Okay, Steve, if you think that movie, which is a guilty pleasure for so many, sucked big time, why don't you suggest an idea of your own for making a better Sgt. Pepper movie yourself?" Well, as a matter if fact, I have, on social media, but I've never posted it here before now.
I have to confess that my idea breaks, or at least bends, some of my own rules on how to make a better Sgt. Pepper movie, which I offered in a post from March 2018. But I think it would work because it's more plot-driven and the musical numbers would be presented by a band playing a concert, as the original Beatles album envisioned, not be a device for characters to suddenly break out in song like in a traditional musical.
Sgt. Pepper retires from making music and becomes his grandson Billy Shears' music teacher. Billy has a band in high school, and Sgt. Pepper helps them with their music. They name themselves Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band because they don't have girlfriends ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"), and they get by because they help each other out. ("With a Little Help From My Friends") The lead guitarist has a crush on a girl in high school, Lucy. In art class, he paints a fantasy picture of her silhouetted against a field of stars. ("Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds") They start going out. Sgt. Pepper realizes that the band is honing its skills quite well ("Getting Better") even as they hold down cruddy part-time jobs, like the bass player, who works for a home improvement company. ("Fixing a Hole") The drummer finds true love with another girl in school. Lucy wants to be an artist, and she can't communicate with her parents, so she runs away to seek her fame and fortune, leaving her boyfriend bereft. ("She's Leaving Home") Her father, Mr. Kite, is really upset, so Sgt. Pepper's Band plays a show to raise money to help him find Lucy. The show is held with a traveling circus that Mr. Kite used to perform with as a young man, with other acts to bring in the families with little kids. ("Being For the Benefit Of Mr. Kite!")
A lady clown - or maybe a ballerina mime 😉 - catches Billy's attention; she thinks he's cute. She takes him back to her trailer, goes into another room to remove her costume and makeup, and turns out to be a gorgeous woman, a few years older than Billy, when she emerges. After talking to each other and realizing how much they have in common, they fall in love, and they sleep together. (Don't worry, by now, Billy is 18.) They talk about the meaning of life in afterglow. ("Within You, Without You") The lady clown asks Billy if they will stay together despite the age difference. ("When I'm Sixty-Four") The circus leaves town, but Billy and his new girlfriend vow to keep a long-distance romance going. Eventually, the bass player finds a girlfriend when, just after high school graduation, he sees a parking meter attendant writing up a ticket when he parks the band's van in a NO PARKING zone. ("Lovely Rita")
Billy's circus girlfriend returns to town - with Lucy, who wants to go home. Everyone is happy when Lucy returns in the A.M. hours. ("Good Morning, Good Morning") Billy's girlfriend has quit the circus to become the band's manager; surprisingly, no one objects. The band gets a recording contract, Billy is grateful to his grandfather, and the band leaves for the big city with their girlfriends. The end.
The musical sequences are Sgt. Pepper's Band performing in concert the songs their beginnings inspired while their ladies wait backstage, and the movie's plot is told in flashbacks. The last song they play at the end of the movie is the hard-rocking "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" reprise. "A Day In the Life" plays over the closing credits. A reference to the newspaper stories would be worked into the script somewhere in the third act so it makes sense. In the flashback scenes, they play covers of the same rock and roll and rhythm and blues songs the Beatles themselves covered.
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Admittedly, this treatment probably wouldn't make a great movie, but it would most likely make a better movie than the one that came out in 1978. I don't think anyone will actually try to make a movie based on only the songs in Sgt. Pepper and nothing else, or any movie based on Beatles songs, because the surviving Beatles, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison liked 2007's Across the Universe (which I haven't seen) so much, why bother making another Beatles jukebox musical?
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