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| The super cheesy poster for the 1985 documentary The Beach Boys: An American Band. |
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| The Beach Boys in 1980. Front row: Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Al Jardine. Back row: Mike Love, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson. That's a lot of facial hair on display. Also, did Al steal Mike's hat? |
The 1985 documentary The
Beach Boys: An American Band, directed by Malcolm Leo, features a ton of
archival footage of the group, but unfortunately falls short on delivering much
insight into the band. Made with the cooperation of the Beach Boys, the film
doesn’t have much of a narrative. And that’s too bad, since the story of the
Beach Boys is pretty fascinating, full of ups and downs and lots of issues that
this documentary glosses over.
An American Band focuses
a lot on Brian Wilson, which is to be expected, but the deeper I dig into the
Beach Boys, the more intriguing I find the stories of all the other members
besides Brian. And that doesn’t mean Brian’s story isn’t interesting, but I
know the general outline of his story pretty well. What intrigues me more now
is what happens to the band after the
leading member suffers a nervous breakdown in 1967 and steps back from leading
the band.
A lot of the interview footage used in An American Band was shot for other projects. The interview footage
of an overweight Brian in bed, which alternates between being campy and sad,
was shot for the 1976 TV documentary It’s
OK, which was promoting the band’s then-latest album, 15 Big Ones. It’s OK is also the source of the “Surf Police”
sketch, in which John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd charge Brian with “failing to
surf,” pull him out of bed, and take him surfing—which means they push him on a
surfboard and make sure he doesn’t get pulled out to sea by the undertow.
Beatles fan should be on the lookout for Paul and Linda
McCartney in the footage at the beginning of the movie, as we get to see Brian
Wilson’s 34th birthday party. (Again, this was footage from It’s OK.) Paul isn’t interviewed, which
is too bad, but he’s there, hanging out, having a good time. And Brian got out
of bed for the party.
One of the problems with An
American Band is that it doesn’t do anything to put the Beach Boys’ music
in any sort of context. It’s more like, “Here’s them singing ‘Surfin’ Safari,’
here’s them singing ‘I Get Around.’ Here’s a painfully unfunny clip of them
singing ‘California Girls’ before they’re interrupted by Bob Hope and Jack
Benny.” And while that reinforces how many amazing hits they had, it doesn’t do
a lot to tell the story of their music, and how their music fit into the fabric
of the 1960’s.
Because there are so many clips of the Beach Boys in An American Band, there’s little time
left over to tell their story. That being said, the clips are fantastic. You
might not learn a lot about the inner dynamics of the Beach Boys from An American Band, but you will have fun,
fun, fun. There’s a great clip of the band, dressed in white suits, probably
around 1968, that highlights what a great band the Beach Boys were at that
time. There’s also some nice footage of Dennis Wilson in the studio, most
likely recording his 1977 solo album Pacific
Ocean Blue.
Had An American Band been
released in 1982, it might have simply ended with the band singing “Barbara Ann”
live. But 1983 was a big year in the history of the Beach Boys. The band had
been headlining July 4th concerts on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C. since 1980. However, in 1983, clueless Secretary of the
Interior James Watt banned the concerts, famously saying that they attracted “the
wrong element.” This ended up being a public relations coup for the Beach Boys,
as the public supported them, and they got a lot of press. The Beach Boys ended
up being invited to the White House by President Ronald Reagan. The year ended
on a tragic note with the drowning death of Dennis Wilson on December 28th.
The Beach Boys continued on, and An
American Band ends with their triumphant return to the National Mall on
July 4, 1984.
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