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.

Book Review: Why The Beach Boys Matter, by Tom Smucker (2018)

Why The Beach Boys Matter, by Tom Smucker, 2018. (Pictured on the cover: Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Mike Love. Not pictured on the cover: Brian Wilson.)

The Beach Boys have been one of my favorite groups since I was a little kid. Even before I got into the Beatles, I was a Beach Boys fan. I’ve been listening to a lot of the Beach Boys lately, so I was pretty excited to pick up a copy of Tom Smucker’s 2018 book Why The Beach Boys Matter. 

Smucker is a long-time fan of the Beach Boys, and his passionate defense of their importance is carefully thought out. Smucker also doesn’t overstate his case. He’s never arguing that the Beach Boys are better than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, and he’s never arguing that Pet Sounds is the greatest album of all time. Smucker writes of Pet Sounds: “I never believed it should be everybody’s favorite album. Or everybody’s second-favorite album. Or that there was something insensitive about not responding to it at all.” (p.84) I strongly agree with this style of criticism. I try not to write in hyperbole about music, movies, or literature and I appreciate other critics who follow the same principle. 

Why The Beach Boys Matter is divided into short chapters that cover various aspects of the Beach Boys’ musical career, such as “Cars and Guitars,” “Suburbs and Surf,” and “Fathers, Shrinks, and Gurus.” At just 176 pages, Why The Beach Boys Matter packs a lot of content into a short volume. Smucker does an excellent job summarizing the Beach Boys’ long career, examining their influences and their place in American pop culture.

A lot of writing about the Beach Boys tends to lionize Brian Wilson and vilify Mike Love. Smucker doesn’t fall into this trap, and does an admirable job of being fair to both Brian and Mike. Smucker writes of Love: “Mike’s the Beach Boy who’s worked the hardest to puzzle out how and where they can position themselves in the current moment, and where they fit into the past.” (p.121) 

Smucker takes us through the up and down of the Beach Boys, from their staggering early success—13 Top Ten singles in the U.S. from 1963 to 1966—to Brian Wilson’s retreat from the group in the late 1960’s, as their commercial fortunes waned and the other Beach Boys stepped up and tried to fill the void. The band continued to make strong music during this era, but they didn’t produce any huge hit singles or albums. Then in 1974, the Beach Boys’ old label, Capitol Records, put out a greatest hits compilation covering their 1962-65 years. It was called Endless Summer, and it spent three years on the Billboard album charts, hitting number one four months after it was released. Suddenly the Beach Boys were hot again, but it was for their old songs. Rolling Stone magazine named the Beach Boys the “Band of the Year” for 1974. The Boys were back, but the success of Endless Summer meant that their old material would overshadow whatever new songs they came out with. Smucker points out that during the early 1970’s the Beach Boys turned into a great live band. They were a group so confident in their abilities that they would actually open concerts with “Good Vibrations,” a song considered by many to be the group’s masterpiece. 

The Beach Boys, and Brian Wilson, have continued to thrive well into the 21^st century. It’s now almost sixty years since the first Beach Boys record was made, and their music still sounds as vibrant as ever.

Book Review: Mistress of the Ritz, by Melanie Benjamin (2019)

Author Melanie Benjamin, and the cover of Mistress of the Ritz, to be published in May, 2019.

Melanie Benjamin’s previous historical novels have examined the lives of Truman Capote, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Hollywood star Mary Pickford. Her new novel, Mistress of the Ritz, will be issued in May, and focuses on Claude Auzello, the long-time director of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and his wife Blanche. The novel skips around in time, but the main focus is the German occupation of France during World War II. 

After the French government surrendered to the Germans in June of 1940, the Nazis took over the Ritz and used it as a command post. Claude must decide how he will deal with the Germans. This was a question that millions of people throughout Europe had to deal with as the Germans invaded and conquered most of the continent. How will you handle the Germans? Will you collaborate with them or resist them? It’s a difficult question, made trickier by the moral obligation Claude feels towards the many people who work at the Ritz. 

Blanche must decide what course of action she will take as well. An American, Blanche met Claude in 1923, when he was working at Hotel Claridge, just before he got his job at the Ritz. Blanche and Claude have a fairly tempestuous marriage, as he clings to some of his French customs, like taking a mistress, and they argue frequently. 

Mistress of the Ritz paints a vivid picture of the luxurious life at the Ritz. As far as the plot of the novel goes, I found it quite engaging. However, I correctly guessed the two big plot reveals long before they occurred in the narrative. 

As an F. Scott Fitzgerald buff, I do have to point out one historical error. When Blanche comes back to the Ritz after a fight with Claude in 1937, she asks “Where’s Scott?” Ernest Hemingway then tells Blanche that Scott and Zelda have gone back to America. Which they did, back in September of 1931. Scott and Zelda never returned to Europe after that, which means that Blanche hasn’t seen Scott for six years. So she really shouldn’t be surprised that he isn’t drinking in the bar at the Ritz. Anyway, that’s a small historical quibble. 

If you’re interested in historical fiction, you should pick up Mistress of the Ritz when it comes out in May.

Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama at the Xcel Energy Center

On Wednesday evening I saw Michelle Obama at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. She was appearing as part of her book tour to promote her excellent book Becoming, which I reviewed here. Obama appeared with Michele Norris, former host of NPR’s All Things Considered. It was a memorable evening, and it was a lot of fun to see Michelle Obama in person. It’s hard to really call it “an intimate conversation” when you’re speaking to about 15,000 people, but Michelle Obama did a good job of making it feel as though we were just listening to her chat with Michele Norris. 

Obama’s humor really struck me—there were several times during the evening when I laughed pretty hard. Michelle Obama seems like a really cool person, and if you have the opportunity to see her in person, you should do it. Obama also does a great job of connecting with young people in whatever community she’s in, and the evening began with several Twin Cities women talking about who they are in the process of becoming. I like the title of Obama’s book, and I really like the idea that we are all “becoming” something. As Obama says in the book, it isn’t like you just become something and then never change or grow after that. We’re always continuing to change and do different things in our lives. It will be interesting to see how involved Michelle Obama stays with public policy and what she does in her post-First Lady career. I know she’s ruled out running for President in 2020, but I think she’d be a darn good President.

Book Review: To-morrow, by Joseph Conrad (1902)

The Penguin Little Black Classics edition of To-morrow, by Joseph Conrad. (Originally published in 1902, this edition published in 2015.)

Author Joseph Conrad, pictured in 1904.

Joseph Conrad’s short story “To-morrow,” was first published in the pages of The Pall Mall Magazine in 1902. The following year it appeared in book form in the collection Typhoon and Other Stories. In 2015, Penguin Classics issued “To-morrow” as a stand-alone book in their “Little Black Classics” series. It seems somewhat silly to issue just one story on its own, especially as “To-morrow” is only 50 pages long, but I happened upon “To-morrow” at Half Price Books for 99 cents, and since I don’t have the story in any of my other Conrad books, I decided to buy it. 

“To-morrow” tells the story of Captain Hagberd, who moves to the seaport of Colebrook in the hope of being reunited with his son, whom the Captain has not seen in many years. The Captain is a widower, and his one friend is his next-door neighbor, Bessie Carvil, who takes care of her father, a boat-builder who has gone blind. 

The story is full of Conrad’s beautiful prose. He describes Bessie looking at Captain Hagberd: “She would look at her father’s landlord in silence—in an informed silence which had an air of knowledge, expectation, and desire.” (p.2)

After Captain Hagberd has been in Colebrook for a while, he stops speaking to the townspeople about when he thinks his son will be back. Conrad writes: “For all one could tell, he had recovered already from the disease of hope; and only Miss Bessie Carvil knew that he said nothing about his son’s return because with him it was no longer ‘next week,’ ‘next month,’ or even ‘next year.’ It was ‘to-morrow.’” (p.8-9) 

Captain Hagberd is convinced that his son will return tomorrow. He is continually optimistic, as he is always looking forward to the next day. “To-morrow” reminded me a bit of a Samuel Beckett play, with a character living in constant anticipation of the future, rather than living in the present. 

“To-morrow” is a superb story, and it highlights Conrad’s ability to craft an engaging tale.