Sixties City presents a wide-ranging series of articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic 60s music paper  Mersey Beat

Wonderwall


Wonderwall
George Harrison provided the music for the sound of this film, directed by Joe Massot and starring Jane Birkin, Jack MacGowran and Iain Quarrier. Oscar Collins, a scientist who works for the water board, accidentally creates a hole in his wall and watches a young model and her photographer boyfriend who live next door, a plot not unlike the Henry Barbousse novel ‘L’Enfer’. The Dutch design group The Fool also provided the set designs for the film. ‘Wonderwall’ was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17th 1968 with George and Patti Harrison and Ringo and Maureen Starkey in attendance.

The British release was on January 12th 1969. The movie soundtrack album was said to have made George the first member of The Beatles to compose a complete soundtrack for a film (although Paul had been involved in soundtrack work on ‘The Family Way’ two years previously). The soundtrack was issued under George’s name, although he only composed and produced and didn’t play on any of the tracks. He was initially asked to become involved in composing the soundtrack by director Joe Massott in 1967, although Massott had originally approached The Bee Gees, who declined the project. George began work on it after the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ in late 1967, deciding on an instrumental soundtrack and produced a series of home demos after viewing an unfinished version of the film.

Massot was to say, “I had various choices, The Bee Gees were interested in doing something and came to Twickenham Studios to see me. It seemed the movie had created a vibe as Graham Nash also wanted to join in. George told me that he had been working on "Magical Mystery Tour" helping out, but that was Paul's project...that he would like to do something solo. So I told him he would have a free hand to do anything he liked musically. That was what interested him in the picture."

George then gathered a number of musicians using Abbey Road and the De Lane Lea Recording Studio in Kingsway. He produced two numbers in Abbey Road’s Studio 2 on Wednesday November 22nd 1967 under the working titles ‘India’ and ‘Swordfencing,’ utilising the talents of two flautists Richard Adeney and Jack Ellory, together with a tabla player. The following day he was recording in Studio 3 and the musicians used included two oboists, one trumpeter and two flautists.
The complete personnel of musicians at the various London sessions were: John Barham, piano, flugelhorn; Tommy Reilly, harmonica; Colin Manley, guitar, steel guitar; Tony Ashton, jangle piano, organ; Phil Rogers, bass; Roy Dyke, drums. He recorded another session at Abbey Road’s No 2 studio on January 5th and on January 7th 1968.

George flew to India and spent five days at the EMI Studios in Bombay. Musicians at the Bombay sessions included: Ashish Khan, sarod; Mahapurush Mistra, tabla, pakavaj; Sharod and Hanuman Jadev, shanghais; Sambu-Das, Indril Bhattacharya, Shankar Ghosh, sitars; Chandra Shakher, surbahar; Shiv Kumar Shermar, santoor; S.R. Kenkare, flute; Vanaik Vora, thar-shanhai, Rij Ram Desad, harmonium, Tablatarang. The album became the first LP released on the Apple label on Friday November 1st 1968 on Apple SAPCOR 1 and in America on December 2nd 1968 on Apple ST 3350 where it reached No.49 in the charts.

The tracks were: Side One: ‘Microbes’, ‘Red Lady Too’, ‘Tabla and Pakavaj’, ‘in the Park’, ‘Drilling A Home’, ‘Guru Vandana’, ‘Greasy Legs’, ‘Ski-ing’, ‘Gat Kirwani’, ‘Dream Scene.’ Side Two: ‘Party Secombe’, ‘Love Scene’, ‘Crying’, ‘Cowboy Music’, ‘Fantasy Sequins’, ‘On the Bed’, ‘Glass Box’, ‘Wonderwall To Be Here’, ‘Singing Om.’

The press synopsis for the film read:
“In 1960’s London an eccentric professor (Jack MacGowran) lives the life of a recluse. He becomes fixated with a beautiful model Penny Lane (Jane Birkin), the girlfriend of Svengali-like fashion photographer (Iain Quarrier). The professor spies on the girl through a hole in the wall in his gothic flat, and embarks on a quixotic quest to become her champion. The kaleidoscope of images and George Harrison’s musical score catapult the audience into another realm of consciousness."
George Harrison - Wonderwall

Wonderwall “As the professor retreats into his own world, his lab assistant, (Richard Wattis) and his cleaning woman (Irene Handl) become concerned for his well-being. When the girl becomes pregnant she is abandoned by her boyfriend and attempts suicide. To save her, the Professor enters her flat via the roof and passes through the Wonderwall."

"When he returns to his laboratory, he is a transformed man.
The film has the quality of a dreamscape where appearance and reality are intermingled, in the manner of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. What could have been a mere exercise in voyeurism becomes instead an alchemist’s search for love and redemption.”

Massot restored and re-released the movie in 1998 and when George Harrison was searching through the master recordings he came across a track by Liverpool group The Remo Four called ‘In The First Place.’ The track was included in the new print replacing the Indian chants over the opening titles and it was also issued as a CD single in 1999 by Pilar.

Sadly Massot, who went on to direct Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Song Remains The Same’ in 1976 and who was present with The Beatles in Rishikesh, India, passed away in 2002 and Colin Manley and Tony Ashton of The Remo Four are also no longer with us. Oasis, a Manchester group who were inspired by the Beatles, also produced one of their biggest hits under the title ‘Wonderwall.’



Mersey Beat Magazine Bill Harry attended the Liverpool College of Art with Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon and made the arrangements for Brian Epstein to visit The Cavern, where he saw The Beatles for the first time. Bill was a member of 'The Dissenters' and the founder and editor of 'Mersey Beat', the iconic weekly music newspaper that documented the early Sixties music scene in the Liverpool area and is possibly best known for being the first periodical to feature a local band called 'The Beatles'. He has worked as a high powered publicist, doing PR for acts such as Suzi Quatro, Free, The Arrows and Hot Chocolate and has managed press campaigns for record labels such as CBS, EMI, Polydor. Bill is the critically acclaimed author of a large number of books about The Beatles and the 60s era including 'The Beatles Who's Who', 'The Best Years of the Beatles' and the Fab Four's 'Encyclopedia' series. He has appeared on 'Good Morning America' and has received a Gold Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

Article Text Bill Harry       Original Graphics SixtiesCity      Other individual owner copyrights may apply to Photographic Images

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