Friday, April 11, 2008

THE GHOST GOES GEAR - Spencer Davis Group/Joan Shakespeare - "Polly Put The Kettle On, The Drum Floated Away" (1966)

"The Ghost Goes Gear" comes across like the bastard son of "A Hard Day's Night" and "The Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow," but not near as good as either one of them! Kind of like one long and very annoying Spencer Davis music video variety show, the music is very good, of course, but the film is full of extremely irritating secondary characters who are in the movie for no reason but to bother you. 
 
If the band's manager, and his constant cloying, "Spencer, Oh Spencer" isn't bad enough, you've got that other old man, and let us not forget about Polly, and can you believe they made Steve push the wheelbarrow. I guess it figures, he was the youngest! 
 
I was really going to slam Sheila White's portrayal of Polly as being one of the worst and aggravating performances ever put on film, but after doing some research, I figured out that she was only 16 at the time, and it was her first ever performance, so probably, the blame really lies with the lame director who was telling her and the others to act so cuckold, it really grates on my nerves and she looks like she needs to wash her hair! 
 
Spencer Davis just keeps on smiling and Polly just keeps on gyrating!! There is literally a ton of music in this film, but some of the"Chasing The Drum Down The River" and "Polly Dancing In The Kitchen" music is the best, and stuff you've probably never heard before. Sounds a lot to me like a bit of what the future Traffic would sound like. Maybe it's just the sax, but there are some good grooves, and if you don't have to watch the maddening other characters, you can really enjoy the music, and you have Joan Shakespeare to thank for a lot of it! 
 
There's about 87 more songs in this movie including some Acker Bilk, The Lorne Gibson Trio, David Berry, The Three Bells, St. Louis Union, and M6! We might do more sometime, maybe not! It gets to be a bit much when the whole movie is music!! As bad as this movie is, anybody who loves 60's music like we do should get a copy, and it's usually available on Amazon for less than 10 bucks!!

2 comments:

Greg Goodsell said...

Will someone please take up a collection for some shampoo for Sheila White?

Anonymous said...

I thought the boy who played the ghost was pretty good...Robert Langley who later appeared in the movie musical Oliver.

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