Telstar: The Joe Meek Story

Telstar is the satellite that inspired British music producer and his in house band The Tornadoes to launch the instrumental record which became the first US number 1 hit by a British group. Meek who operated out of the top of of a leather good shop was a maverick like Phil Spector, and just like Spector with a fondness of guns. The film starts and feels like a stage play very much in keeping with its origins as a stage play and low budget adaptation as a film. Con O'Neill (reprising the part from the play) plays Meek, harried, frazzled, on the edge with drugs keeping him going. Kevin Spacey makes a cameo as Major Banks his business backer who keeps the whole enterprise in even keel as we find that Meek is certainly no businessman. Somewhere within the chaos of the upstairs apartment * music studio Meek who could not read or write music and was ridiculed for being tone deaf managed to produced a string of heats and had major musician working under him such as Ritchie Blackmore, Chas Hodges. I shall omit Screaming Lord Sutch as a major musician though. However the pill popping, plagiarism accusations, arrest for importuning in a public toilet, his falling out with the Major lead to deepening financial turmoil and the falling out with friends and musicians. The hits dried up and in a tragic demise he ended up shooting his landlady and himself. The film by actor turned director Nick Moran is rather messy. Moran does well with a low budget to evoke a sixties atmosphere which is away from the swinging which was so beloved by past filmmakers. Its nice to see support from Spacey, James Corden as well as some of the real life people who associated with Meek turn up such as Jess Conrad. However the film feels overlong and as Moran tries to imbue Meek with some psychological character traits based on his upbringing and his past family life it feels like a failure as it adds little. Many people of his generation had family affected by The Great War or trauma in childhood. I found this a middling film whose kinetic energy runs out midway through and the film starts to drag until the tragic ending.

Over acted, under written. Poorly shot. Kevin Spacey, huh? Good for vacuuming the house.

source: Telstar: The Joe Meek Story

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.

This seems like a parody that has gone completely wrong. I didn't find it funny or engaging or interesting. For me this is easily the worst Spacey performance I have ever seen. His attempt to be a British military man is so wooden.

A great film, if difficult to watch due to the bad language, but at least it's true to life and has not had the awful Hollywood touch. Good to hear the old tunes and see Meek's genius and sometimes horrible nastiness. I hadn't realised that Ritchie Blackmore was one of his musicians, or MItch Mitchell (if briefly). He didn't rate the Beatles when he heard their promo tape from Epstein! His drug taking (not shown in the film) and paranoia/depression, homosexuality for which he was arrested, as well as debts, caused him to accidentally kill his landlady and end his own life. The actor playing Meeks is fantastic but often difficult to understand, due to his Gloucestershire accent, which fluctuates and changes quite a lot.

Joe Meek was a genius, he was a pioneer of his field. His influence on pop music is still discernible after almost 50 years. Alone Telstar was a breathtaking creation, completely different from the music of its time and from anything else before. This is what made Joe Meek famous. When I first heard Telstar, I was astonished and thougth that this music is not from this planet (just as Telstar was off planet). I assume this movie is watched by people who felt the same and recognized the genius of Joe Meek. However, this movie shows Joe Meek as a homosexual lunatic involved in all kind of conflicts. Many people have similar fate but nobody would make a movie of them. In case of Joe Meek all the negative events shown might have been reality, nevertheless Joe Meek was Telstar, The Tornados, Heinz, The Honeycombs and other successful, great music productions. Why would one wash dirty laundry when there are so many beautiful things to show? This movie is the same kind of miscarriage as Ray. Disappointing, despite of great acting.

I watched this film a while ago with my brother and mum.We were looking forward to watching it as we thought it would be an interesting, entertaining film. We were however, disappointed. From the start of the film the pace was I felt rushed in parts, it seemed to lack direction and 'flitted' from scene to scene with little explanation as to why. Prior to watching the film we(my brother and I) knew a little about Joe Meek. I didn't do any reading before watching the film to find out anything else about him. The film focused on Two aspects of Meek's portrayed personality- 1) homosexuality and 2) Frequent temper tantrums- and that's it , thats the basis of the story. There's a brief appearance of singer's Billy Fury(the tornado's were at one time his backing group) and Gene Vincent. The portrayal of Vincent is in my opinion 'cringeworthy' and disappointing. In short, my advice is watch it if you're absolutely bored senseless and you can think of literally nothing else to do.

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.

At last! Nick Moran's labour of love finally reaches the big screen and it's well worth the wait. It's basically the stage play transferred to the screen but, considering how claustrophobic Joe's life at 304 Holloway Road was, it's no bad thing. When he ventures outside into a pre-summer of love 60's London, the culture clash between his dated be-suited appearance and the bright colours of the kids speaks volumes as to what an anachronism he's become. All the regular support cast in the Joe Meek story are present and correct. Kevin Spacey is the tragically unheeded voice of reason as business partner Major Wilfred Banks. Far from being an insensitive hard-headed businessman, he gave Joe the finances to indulge his talent but found, as Dennis Preston had done before, that Joe was an ungrateful employee. Banks role has been expanded to incorporate Spacey and give him more screen time and - apart from the odd lapse - his British tones are maintained throughout. Con O'Neill must surely be up for a BAFTA. He truly inhabits the part and one can only hope it doesn't have an adverse mental effect in the long run a la Heath Ledger. One telling scene has Meek at his lowest ebb as the Beatles - whom he could have signed - receive their MBE's on a TV in the background. J J Field is the unworthy object of his affections as Golden Boy Heinz. His part is also expanded from the play as we see him grappling with Jess Conrad backstage and witness his unbelievable arrogance to his backing band. Actually, Heinz got on well with his support band in spite of their low opinion of his musical abilities. Of the rest of the cast, Pam Ferris provides sympathy for the luckless Mrs Shenton who cheerfully fails to grasp the increasingly dangerous madhouse she has given shelter to. Still, I can't imagine her family members sitting through her violent end - which is depicted as more of an accident than on stage. The actor playing Ritchie Blackmore could have provided a Brummie accent as the stage version did. But these are minor quibbles. Nick Moran and Simon Jordan deserve credit for getting this on screen. In wake of Phil Spector's recent conviction, it is more timely than ever.