Starring Aaron Lohr, Jeff Geddis, George Stanchev, and L.B Fisher
Directed by Neil Fearnley
Music and Lyrics by various
The Wonders were far from the first or last fictional music group to blur the lines between fantasy and reality. The Monkees began in 1966 as four very different young men who were brought together by director Bob Rafelson and producer Bert Schneider to appear in a TV show that would appeal to young and hip teens, with music catering to them. The show they made may have been inspired by the Beatles and A Hard Day's Night, but it ended up with a wacky style all its own. Though the music used in the show was even more popular for a few years, its creation - and the young men who made it - had a rougher go of things. We learn just how difficult as we start with a modern young man coming up with the idea of using a TV show with a lovable rock band that sounds very familiar...
The Story: Producer and director Van Foreman (Colin Ferguson) comes to NBC in 1965 with a revolutionary new idea for a sitcom about a diverse rock group who live together and have wacky adventures. Mike Nesmith (Geddis), a fiercely independent country singer from Texas trying to support his pregnant wife Phyllis (Polly Shannon), learns about the auditions from the ad Foreman posts in Variety. Peter Tork (Fisher), a folk singer from Connecticut working as a dish washer, hears about it from a friend. Former child star Micky Dolenz (Lohr) and British former stage star Davy Jones (Stanchev) are encouraged to audition by their agents, despite Jones having no prior experience with instruments or rock.
Foreman and NBC hire Don Kirshner (Wallace Langham) to handle the albums they'll put out in promotion of the show. After a few hiccups, the show and the album are smash hits beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but trouble looms. The music press heavily criticizes the band only handling the singing on their first album, something that frustrates and angers musicians Mike and Peter. Matters come to a head when Kirshner ignores orders to put out a song Mike wrote as a single and uses one of the songs from his stable of songwriters instead.
After a tense confrontation that ends with Mike putting his hand in a hotel wall, Kirshner is fired, and the guys are finally able to make their own album, Headquarters. It's a big hit...until the much more progressive and slick St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released. Their tour in 1967 is a hit, too, but their opening act Jimi Hendrix doesn't go over as well with their young audience. The show ends after the second season. Van wants to move the guys into movies with the help of up-and-coming star Jack Nicholson (Matthew Schmelzle), but their movie Head is a weird and bitter bomb. Peter's tired of the guys not wanting to record as a band and is ready to quit, but Mike and Davy are reminded of what's really important after an accident nearly costs Mike his wife.
The Song and Dance: At the very least, they found four guys who honestly do a decent job playing the Monkees. Geddis and Fisher in particular look like Nesmith and Tork and do excellently as the two musicians who, despite their very different preferences and performing styles, manage to work together to make their songs heard. Geddis nails the intense sequence where Mike and the others confront Kirshner at the hotel. Langham even makes a great smarmy Kirshner.
In fact, my favorite thing here, other than Rhino surprisingly choosing some relatively obscure material to highlight, is how well they pull off the entire plot with the music. It's apparently pretty close to what actually happened, and it's handled beautifully. The brief recreations of Mike and Davy's audition interviews are pretty spot-on too, up to and including their being in black and white, as is the sequence from the episode "Fairy Tale" with Peter as a peasant and Mike in drag as a persnickety princess.
The Numbers: Our first actual number is "Last Train to Clarksville," performed in front of an actual train in the Monkees' first live performance. Micky in particular really gets into the song, playing to the screaming girls in the audience and having a whale of a time. "Hey Hey, We're the Monkees" gives us a nice recreation of the original first-season opening credits montage. We get a brief instrumental bit as the Monkees try to learn how to play as a band, with Mike pushing too hard and the guys arguing over the rehearsal. Things go far better at their first concert in Hawaii, where Davy sings the slow version of "I Wanna Be Free" to all those screaming fans.
"I'm a Believer" takes us into early '67, as the Monkees become more confident as a live band and on the show and "Believer" becomes their biggest hit ever. The live version of "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" provides the backdrop for the Monkees escaping their fans in and around a hotel before their first big gig. Micky even comes out to the audience to sing his heart out, ignoring someone's attempt to throw a cape over him. The Knack's "All In the All and All" is heard in the background during the party that introduces the Monkees to the Beatles. The Monkees have a great time recording the now-rare "All of Your Toys" for Headquarters (which it would eventually be passed over for). Davy and Peter aren't as happy recording Davy's best-known hit "Daydream Believer," but their video for it on the show is a far more pleasant affair. Other than them all wearing white when they were in different clothes on the show, this is also recreated accurately.
Trivia: There's quite a few historical and character inaccuracies, starting with Phyllis Nesmith had already given birth to their first child Christian over a year before The Monkees began and would have another during its production. Mike rode a motorcycle to the studio; he couldn't afford a car at the time. Micky and Davy never saw the ad and had their own private auditions. Peter's friend who told him about the audition was Stephen Stills, of Crosby, Stills, and Nash fame (who looked nothing like the guy who tells Peter in the movie).
Van is a composite of the real Monkees creators director Bob Rafelson and producer Bert Schneider. The Monkees' hairstyles are also inaccurate for the time. Micky had his hair straight for the first season and wavy but not as curly during the early second. Davy's hair looks like it did in the later first season episodes of late '66-early '67.
"All of Your Toys" was indeed the first song the Monkees recorded after their revolt, but Kirshner rejected it for not having a Screen Gems (Columbia Pictures) trademark; it was rejected for Headquarters as well. It wouldn't make it on an album until the 1987 release of cut and unused Monkees songs Missing Links.
What I Don't Like: At times, it becomes all-too obvious that this was a made-for-cable movie filmed in Toronto. Many of the locations look nothing like LA or London. The dialogue is often clunky and stilted, especially near the end, where we get a lot of sloppy speeches from Mike and Peter on artistic integrity and Davy having to "cut the strings" and stop being a puppet. Davy's frustration and homesickness is mostly manufactured (he'd been on his own since he was 14), but his feeling out-of-place in the group wasn't. Lohr was such an adorable Micky and so perfectly captured his endless energy that I really wish he had more to do. Micky isn't seen or heard from as often as the other three, despite having just as much going on at the time as them.
My biggest gripe is the too-pat ending. It barely touches on Peter's frustration over them not recording as a band and leaving the group. The whole thing at the beach and with Mike and Davy at the hospital is overly sentimental and smacks of a cop-out. In truth, there was no easy ending to the Monkee's story in the 60's. Peter left in 1969. The other three continued on, with Mike finally calling it quits to form his own band later that year. Davy and Micky did one more album as a duo, then Davy quit. (Micky Dolenz claims to be the only member who never quit any version of the Monkees.) There would be successful revivals in 1986 on MTV and Nickelodeon, in 1997, and in 2016 after Jones' death. In fact, I wonder if this might have made a better miniseries. There's really too much story here for a hour and a half cable movie.
The Big Finale: If you're already a big Monkees fan like me, you probably know everything that's covered here. For casual viewers or fans just discovering their music, use this as a springboard to learning more about the band, their music, and their fight for artistic integrity.
Home Media: The DVD is out of print and pricey, Streaming is far and away your best bet. Amazon Prime and Tubi both currently have it for free with commercials.
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