Toomorrow (film)

Toomorrow
Original UK quad poster
Directed by	Val Guest
Written by	Val Guest
Produced by	Don Kirshner Harry Saltzman
Starring	Olivia Newton-John Benny Thomas Vic Cooper Karl Chambers Roy Dotrice
Cinematography	Dick Bush
Edited by	Julien Caunter Alan Osbiston
Music by	Ritchie Adams Mark Barkan Hugo Montenegro
Production company	Lowndes Productions Limited
Distributed by	Rank Organization
Release date	27 August 1970 (1970-08-27)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Toomorrow is a 1970 British science fiction musical film directed by Val Guest and starring Olivia Newton-John. Guest said in an interview: "That was Harry Saltzman’s great idea. That was the first space musical."

Plot

A group of students pay their way through school by forming a pop band, Toomorrow. Sonic vibrations from a special instrument, a "tonaliser", cause an extra-terrestrial to abduct the group and have them entertain the Alphoid population.

Cast

• Olivia Newton-John as Olivia
• Benny Thomas as Benny
• Vic Cooper as Vic
• Karl Chambers as Karl
• Roy Dotrice as John Williams
• Tracey Crisp as Suzanne Gilmore
• Imogen Hassall as Amy
• Margaret Nolan as Johnson
• Roy Marsden as Alpha
• Carl Rigg as Matthew
• Maria O'Brien as Françoise
• Stuart Henry as compere
• David Lodge as policeman
• Diane Keen as music student
• Maxine Casson as art student
• Shakira Caine as Karl's friend

Production

James Bond film producer Harry Saltzman entered into a three-picture deal with Don Kirshner. Kirshner had been the initial producer of the musical output from the Monkees. However, according to director Val Guest, Kirshner and Saltzman grew to loathe each other during the increasingly troubled production.

Saltzman hired novelist David Benedictus to write the first draft, but after 30 pages neither Saltzman nor Guest felt it was working. Guest conceded that it was "very well written, but a little bit too 'high-faluting'". Saltzman advised Guest to write a new script. However, unbeknownst to Guest, Saltzman never informed Benedictus. Only during production did Benedictus learn that a new script had been commissioned.

Guest says casting Olivia Newton-John was Saltzman's idea.

I was very taken with Livy [Olivia], I thought she had everything going for her in this fresh bubbly way; she was worried about filming, but she got into it pretty soon. [Don] Kirshner wanted Livy to have a love scene in it and Harry came to tell me about this and I spoke to Livy and she went berserk! She didn’t want a love scene, it wasn’t that sort of a picture and “No I can’t.” In fact she burst into tears about it... She was very unhappy about it and finally, we never did the love scene. But all through it was quite obvious that Livy was going places because she was bubbling, bouncy, was quite a looker, it was obvious that she [was as] cute as a button, was going places.

Lawsuit

Guest had been working on the film for six months beyond the time specified for in his contract and still hadn't been paid, nor had anyone else who worked on the film. Saltzman didn't have the money nor did his company "Sweet Music" which was in Switzerland. Guest waited until after the film's premiere at the London Pavilion to obtain an injunction. The film could not be shown until Guest and the other people who worked on the film were paid. According to Guest in 1994, he still had not been paid and the injunction was still in effect.

As a result, the film, which took about two years to make, was shown (in the London Pavilion, then a cinema) for only one week, then was shelved. Aside from isolated showings in the British forces cinemas during 1971 and early 1972 on British military bases along with a copy in a travelling cinema in Scotland, and one showing in Los Angeles in 2000, Toomorrow was not seen in public for over four decades.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Harry Saltzman's extravagance (wide-open sets and sub-2001 effects) and Don Kirshner's fixed conception of young people's tastes in entertainment ... combine to produce a glossy and empty-headed pop fantasy, as computerised as the Alphoids' soulless music. To avoid any comparisons with his previous creation, The Monkees, Kirshner's new supergroup of four includes a winsome starlet and a token negro. They appear as incompatible as one would expect, and are required to do little else than try to put conviction into lines like 'Hey! Any of you cats mind a groove? You got it', which crop up throughout. If this antiseptic crew had really dared to set foot on the stage of the Round House during a pop festival, dressed up like canaries and singing their cute songs of love and tears, they would have been booed, quite deservedly, off it again."

In a March 1971 edition of the British music magazine NME, Newton-John commented "Our film died a death and it was all a bit of a shambles. But it was a good experience".

Home media

Don Kirshner died in January 2011, and in March 2012 the movie was released on DVD in the UK by Pickwick having licensed the film from the estate of writer and director Val Guest. The DVD release was of low quality: it was sourced from an inferior video element and the audio is of marginal quality, with audio on one stereo channel only.

See also

• Toomorrow (soundtrack)

External links

• Toomorrow at IMDb
• Toomorrow movie recap at the Agony Booth
• Review at fan site onlyolivia.com