Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2008)

Sadly Over-hyped

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Joe Meek was a man I knew little about despite the fact that he was of my era with many mega hits he wrote and produced during the early 60s, most notably "Telstar" which was a massive hit.An English Phil Spector if you like and even more remarkable for the fact that all this big sound he produced was on basic recording equipment in his flat that was over a leather goods shop in Holloway Road, London.A flawed genius (aren't they always?) played superbly by Con O'Neill with excellent support cast including Kevin Spacey who effected a remarkably good English accent as a retired Army officer who financed Meeks.What also surprised me was the number of session musicians that came out his stable to go onto huge fame later in life and the number of then unknown artists he worked with. His life ended in a terrible double tragedy. If it ever comes on TV again I highly recommend you see it.

Telstar seems to be in my psyche one of those tunes which I grew up hearing as it was released the day after I was born when I used to have it in my collection without knowing where the record had come from, my parents always had a pile of old records. The Tornados other tracks sounded similar, is there life on Venus, like something from outer space, there was something there, when The Beatles tend to be more over rated in hindsight, it can look as though sometimes they were better than everyone else from the early sixties Saw this film on catch up on TV, then I could fast forward it, couldn't watch it with my mother like I did the Arena documentary back in 1991, there was too much swearing in this, was that language really so much in use back then or do they just have to use it in films that are made these days? I didn't think James Corden looked like Clem Cattini either and while all that music could have driven Joe a bit crazy, this film didn't seem to do him much justice.

Unfortunately all this film did was portray Joe Meek as a disturbed and mildly successful music producer - anyone who didn't know much about music history, or who didn't have the gumption to research the life of Joe Meek any further, could be mistaken for thinking that making a movie about Meek and his final years was a rather odd thing to do.What was sorely lacking from this film was any proper focus on the innovative nature of his work in the recording industry (something which is hinted at in places, but never really explored in any detail until the closing credits tell us that he is considered a visionary pioneer in mus recording).Another glaring omission was the fact that no explicit mention is made of his apparent lack of musical writing abilities and skills (something quire amazing when you consider that he was involved in so many chart busting hits).I also found some of the details rather odd, like the decision to have him accidentally shoot his landlady - something that the eyewitness accounts don't support, or the brief moment in the movie when we are led to believe that Meek was not at all interested in Tom Jones (the 'Welsh' artist that he is told about during one scene in the film) when in actual fact he recorded Jones and then shopped those recordings around major record companies before Jones had his first major success.Then there are also the odd things, like the inclusion of footage of the Beetles becoming hugely successful (news footage shown on TV at one point), without a very clear prior explanation/presentation of the fact that Meek written off the Beatles, believing that they would never make it big.It also seems (not that I was a huge Joe Meek expert before seeing this movie) that the way Meek is played in this movie is far too campy and weird when compared with the actual man himself.In the end, this movie was rushed, and as a result it's narrative becomes a little bit too confused, giving watchers only bits and pieces of information, while missing other vital things out, and then all of a sudden we're watching him shoot his landlady and himself and the credits are rolling.Watchable, but feels like something that the Reader's Digest would make if they were into making film biographies.

I do know something about the mad genius that was Joe Meek. Enough to know that putting his turbulent life into one film is not easy, others have questioned why other formative elements of his life was missed out, if a film is good enough though, surely it will engage those who have seen and enjoyed it to look into it further, using the medium we are now, the internet?Con O'Neill is excellent as the troubled Meek, he has to dominate the film and this he does. While it's true that others in the story were sometimes rather younger than the actors playing them, remember back in this period, the 'teenager' as we now understand it, was only starting to emerge, young people then still often looked, acted, dressed older.They usually left school at 14-15, at around 18 (like Meek) many had to do military service, hand me down clothes from parents were common. All this was changing, as part of the social changes sign posted by the music, which Meek played a part in but, as shown by his dismissal of The Beatles he was doomed not to recognise fully and play a further part in.Meek was the British Phil Spector. But he, as the film well shows, did not enjoy the financial rewards of hits, but both were innovative, reclusive, obsessive and dangerous around firearms. (Given just how many times Spector drew guns on some of the most famous music stars, as well as lovers, business associates, was anyone really surprised at the tragic events at Spector's home in 2003, I certainly thought 'he's finally done it'.)Most music or music based biopics fail as films, while 'Telstar' is not up there with the stunning exception that is Ian Curtis biopic 'Control', it's way better than 'Great Balls Of Fire'.I was certainly kept engaged by this film.