THE BEEGEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART? (2020)

[Edgy MD]

Manx family emigrates to Australia, learns to harmonize, and their three sons dream of going back to England and doing what the Beatles did. Improbably, they kind of pull it off, only differently.



Now available on HBO.



https://pics.filmaffinity.com/The_Bee_Gees_How_Can_You_Mend_a_Broken_Heart-649698281-mmed.jpg>

[Frayed Knot]

They at least had enough archival footage to keep it from being told totally from Barry's perspective.

Most of it was, just not all.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, the deep well of archival material is mos' def' the mos' redeeming part of it. Most of the talking heads they bring in are interesting, but they don't get a very broad population of them, ultimately giving us a solid but unremarkable telling. With all the great footage, they don't really cover the down spots very well. And we know there's good footage of most of those, because they often take place in films, such as Cucumber Castle and Sgt. Pepper's LHCB. Both are treated as if they don't exist. They don't even mention the title song they contributed to Grease, which is silly, considering the film was a global phenomenon and Frankie Valli took the song to number one.



It's almost like they run out of money after telling the story of the anti-disco backlash (which was again, well told, but limited to only a few witnesses, but could be a movie all to itself). Really, from Saturday Night Fever onward, they just step on the gas and zoom into the current day. Post peak BeeGees is still a fascinating story that deserves telling.



I hadn't known this, but the Beatles were inadvertently very important in their genesis. When Brian Epstein died, Robert Stigwood was pissed that he didn't get to become the band's new manager, so he quit the Epstein organization and took the BeeGees and Eric Clapton with him, building an empire around them. In fact there's a lot of big names (Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, Ahmet Ertugun) who appear in the BeeGees story briefly, but make a major contribution.



Also, amazingly, not a single reference to "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights." Come on!

[MFS62]

What does it say about the Flash Gordon movie score?



Later

[Edgy MD]

Well, since that's all music by Queen, it doesn't say anyt'ing.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, since that's all music by Queen, it doesn't say anyt'ing.

D'oh! (insert blushing imoji here)

Later

[Willets Point]

The fact that Barry Gibb continued writing and producing number one hits for other artists well in the 1980s is proof that the record-buying public were suckers for Bee Gees music even after the anti-disco backlash.