Gonks Go Beat (1965)

Simply A Masterpiece

Pretty Good

Overrated and overhyped

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I often suspect that dreadful films like this are produced as a tax loss.Make a film and pay yourself a fat wage for doing it - the film goes nowhere and makes a loss. This doesn't matter because you have already paid yourself - and your fees are simply written off as part of the whole loss.As for a review - there is nothing of merit in the stupid songs that are mimed to or the idiotic convoluted story line.It would seem that the whole thing was made up as they went along - with certain parties being paid along the way.

I think if I'm right this is the Ian Gregory who worked with Joe meek great all star cast a film wouldn't be complete without kenneth Connor love frank truly Thornton it's a bit dated but typical of the great music films such as dateline diamonds and I've gotta horse I'm a fan of sixties music and music films

I watched this film in February 2017 on British TV (for details see below for others who may wish to watch it).I have to say it is pretty awful. A sci-fi movie giving a retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story. Strange eh !For people who "grew up" in the 1960s (like me) it is hard for people today to realize that watching pop groups at the time was difficult (we did not have 30 music channels on Sky as we have today for example).So a number of films were made trying to cram as many pop groups in as they could. However most of the singers / bands / songs in this film are forgettable (yet another bland pop song rhyming "walk" with "talk", probably the most obvious rhyme you can come up with).I am a fan of "bad" movies and I have to say this is right up there with the best / worst (alongside Dean Martin in his Matt Helm movies). If you are a fan of bad movies do try to catch it.This film was shown on British TV in February 2017. It is on the TV channel "Talking Pictures" which is available on most platforms in the UK (Freeview, Sky, Virgin). The channel shows mostly lost or historical films and is a great place to watch films that may never have been shown on TV before (from all eras - 1930s up to 1990s).

GONKS GO BEAT is a very strange, low budget British sci-fi oddity. It's a musical re-working of the Romeo and Juliet storyline, with a unique sci-fi twist; an alien is sent to a futuristic Earth (which looks remarkably like the 1960s) where mankind is divided into two warring tribes. His goal is to bring the two tribes together through music and romance.The description above doesn't really do justice to the sheer oddness of this production. It's basically a musical in which one number plays after the other from beginning to end. Stars like Lulu show up to contribute a number and then disappear. In between the songs, we get some random trappings of the sci fi genre, with respectable actors pretending to be aliens and Kenneth Connor delightfully mugging as the alien ambassador. My favourite scene is the convoy of cars with guitarists sitting on top and playing away - great stuff. What, might you ask, is a gonk? The answer is that they're cheesy soft toys that play a minor role in the proceedings, just adding to the bizarre feel. The film as a whole is weird, quirky, and very, very cult.