Movie Review: The Beach Boys: An American Band, Directed by Malcolm Leo (1985)

The super cheesy poster for the 1985 documentary The Beach Boys: An American Band.

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 34^th 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 4^th 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 28^th. The Beach Boys continued on, and An American Band ends with their triumphant return to the National Mall on July 4, 1984.