Thursday, February 24, 2011

They Had Faces Then

No Early Clue to the New Direction™ today, due to tomorrow being one of our bi-weekly Cinema Listomanias.

In its stead, however, I thought I'd share this quite remarkable promo film from 1964 a friend hipped me to the other day -- the pre-cosmic Moody Blues, featuring the great Denny Laine, doing "Go Now."



I have no idea who directed the thing, and 'm not sure whether or not it was done as a deliberate homage to that iconic black-and-white Robert Freeman Meet the Beatles album cover. But it sure is arty in a wonderfully 60s sort of way.

[h/t Kerrin L. Griffith]

7 comments:

Nigel Tufnel said...

Is it just me, or do they all (except for Laine) look like they're in their mid-30s?

The other Brit invasion bands looked a lot younger in 64, I think. Maybe it's the cinematography.

steve simels said...

I was wondering about that too, now that you mention....

Anonymous said...

It looks influenced by Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

ROTP(lumber)


word verification: fluckst

Brooklyn Girl said...

But it sure is arty in a wonderfully 60s sort of way.

Absolutely.

I have always loved that song.

And my word is prepurmi. What is postpurmi?

Anonymous said...

Whatever it is supposed to be, it is fab.

DeepKarma said...

I clicked through to YouTube so I could add this clip to my Favorites and read some of the comments. Somewhere along the way I had read that "Go Now" was a cover, but never heard the original or knew who the artist was. In case you're interested, check out Bessie Banks' original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY3eEhfY6o4

allen vella said...

But it was their second single, "Go Now" (released later that year), which really launched their career, being promoted on TV with one of the first purpose-made promotional films in the pop era, produced and directed by Alex Wharton

I've loved this song from first hearing it when I was 9 or 10 yrs old. Lovely!