Discs Five and Six are a grab bag that includes unreleased outtakes, alternate takes, and song rehearsals. The bulk of Disc Four offers outtakes, alternate versions of the music, ads for the movie, and such other items as Frank Zappa talking about Ringo and Ringo talking about 200 Motels. Disc Three and part of Disc Four consist of “Dialog Protection Reels,” which are recently discovered “safety tapes” that offer an early version of the film and include bits that didn’t make the final cut.
#FRANK MOVIE OST PLUS#
It will take you more than seven hours to work your way through the CDs, the first two of which contain a remaster of the original soundtrack plus 17 demo recordings.
#FRANK MOVIE OST MOVIE#
Rather curiously, one thing this otherwise exhaustive anniversary edition does not include is a DVD or Blu-ray of the movie itself. The box set also delivers a 200 Motels keychain, a “Do Not Disturb” 200 Motels door hanger, and a two-by-three-foot movie poster. Illustrations include stills from the movie, performance shots, and newspaper clips with headlines ranging from “ 200 Motels Similar to Fellini Films” and “Good, Clean Fun Fills 200 Motels” to “Zappa Put-on a Real Put-off.” The package features six discs encased in a hardcover, LP-sized 64-page book that includes extensive notes about the film and album by assorted involved parties. Of course, your mileage may vary, and if you’re a serious fan, you’ll be glad to hear that 200 Motels has been dramatically expanded for a 50 th-anniversary edition. Though superficially a bit reminiscent of Firesign Theatre, it’s not nearly as clever and while critics found the movie hard to follow, the soundtrack’s absence of visuals renders some of the spoken bits even more abstruse. A lot of it is worth hearing but much of the dialogue is puerile or even cringe-worthy and rarely as funny as Zappa clearly thought it was. Typically for Zappa, the music is all over the place, ranging from hard rock to doo-wop to country, but what predominates are orchestral pieces, some of which reflect his interest in avant-garde classical composers. That last comment could also apply to the soundtrack, which omits some material that’s in the movie and includes some that isn’t. TV Guide praised its “marvelous whirl of color and visual effects” and “fine animation” but in the New York Times, Vincent Canby compared its effect to “an overdose of Novocaine.” Variety’s critic, meanwhile, sat on the fence, calling the film “both sophisticated and sophomoric.” The movie-notable as the first full-length motion picture to be shot on videotape and then transferred to film-garnered decidedly mixed reviews. The list embraces Zappa himself on guitar and bass and members of the Mothers of Invention, including ex-Turtles Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (vocals), Ian Underwood (keyboards, winds), Ruth Underwood (orchestra drum set), Aynsley Dunbar (drums), George Duke (keyboards, trombone), Martin Lickert (bass), and Jimmy Carl Black, the self-proclaimed “Indian of the group” (vocals).Īlso featured are the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra a classical guitar ensemble supervised by John Williams Theodore Bikel, who provides narration groupie and GTOs group member Pamela Des Barres Ringo Starr as “Larry the Dwarf” dressed up to look like Zappa and the Who’s Keith Moon as “The Hot Nun.” Who but Zappa could convince all these disparate people to work together? Performers and musicians in the film and on the accompanying soundtrack are a motley crew. The irreverent script lacks a chronology or coherent storyline. Described by Zappa as “a surrealistic documentary,” it ostensibly conjures up a rock band’s life on the road via a mishmash of skits, satire, music, animation, and a truckload of cutting-edge special effects. Lots of craziness went down in the arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it’s hard to think of anything much crazier than Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels, a film that first appeared in October 1971.
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