Ringo, Frank Zappa – 200 Motels DVD

Ringo, Frank Zappa – 200 Motels DVD

200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. A soundtrack album was released in the same year, with a slightly different selection of music.

Plot
In 200 Motels, the film attempts to portray the craziness of life on the road as a rock musician, and as such consists of a series of unconnected nonsense vignettes interspersed with concert footage of the Mothers of Invention.[3] Ostensibly, while on tour The Mothers of Invention go crazy in the small fictional town of Centerville (“a real nice place to raise your kids up”), wander around, and get beaten up in “Redneck Eats”, a cowboy bar. In a cartoon interlude passed off as a “dental hygiene movie,” bassist “Jeff”, tired of playing what he refers to as “Zappa’s comedy music”, is persuaded by his bad conscience to quit the group, as did his real-life counterpart Jeff Simmons, who was fired for insubordination before the film began shooting. Simmons was replaced by Martin Lickert (who was Ringo’s chauffeur) for the film.[2] Almost every scene is drenched with video special effects (double and triple exposures, solarisation, false color, speed changes, etc.) which were innovative in 1971. The film has been dubbed a “surrealistic documentary”.[4][5]

Cast
Frank Zappa as himself

The Mothers of Invention as themselves

Theodore Bikel as Rance Muhammitz, the narrator/Master of Ceremonies

Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf, dressed as Frank Zappa

Keith Moon as the hot nun

Howard Kaylan as himself

Mark Volman as himself

Ian Underwood as himself

Ruth Underwood as herself

Don Preston as himself

Jimmy Carl Black as Lonesome Cowboy Burt

Euclid James ‘Motorhead’ Sherwood as himself (uncredited)

Aynsley Dunbar as himself

George Duke as himself

Jim Pons as himself (uncredited)

Pamela Des Barres as the interviewer

Martin Lickert as “Jeff”

Janet Neville-Ferguson as Groupie #1

Lucy Offerall as Groupie #2

Dick Barber as Chunga – The Vacuum Cleaner

Judy Gridley as the chorus leader

London Philharmonic Orchestra as the bewildered orchestra

History
In 1970, Frank Zappa formed a new version of The Mothers of Invention which included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and three members of The Turtles—bass player Jim Pons, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan—who, due to persistent legal and contractual problems, adopted the stage name “The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie”, or “Flo & Eddie.”[6]

Zappa began writing a film for his new lineup called 200 Motels, and the band debuted on Zappa’s next solo album Chunga’s Revenge (1970),[7] which was produced as a preview of the film.[8] Zappa also met conductor Zubin Mehta. They arranged a May 1970 concert where Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic augmented by a rock band. This material served as a second preview of the film. According to Zappa, the music was mostly written in motel rooms while on tour with The Mothers of Invention. Some of it was later featured in 200 Motels.[9] Although the concert was a success, Zappa’s experience working with a symphony orchestra was not a happy one.[10] His dissatisfaction became a recurring theme throughout his career; he often felt that the quality of performance of his material delivered by orchestras was not commensurate with the money he spent on orchestral concerts and recordings.[11]

Zappa pitched the film to United Artists, using a portfolio including a ten-page treatment, two boxes of audio tape, and newspaper clippings. The film studio gave Zappa US$650,000 to finish the project, which Zappa initially intended to premiere on Dutch television before his next tour.[8]

Production
Principal scenes of 200 Motels including the London Philharmonic Orchestra were filmed in a week at Pinewood Studios outside London, and featured The Mothers of Invention, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, and Keith Moon.[12] Tensions between Zappa and several cast and crew members arose before and during shooting.[12] However, Director Tony Palmer on his 2009 reissue of 200 Motels claims all elements of the script derived from Frank Zappa’s trunk’s worth of material were completed during production, and that the film’s original video tapes still exist, sitting in front of him while he wrote the DVD liner notes. It was the first feature film photographed on videotape and transferred to 35 mm film utilizing a Technicolor film printer utilized by the BBC, a process which allowed for novel visual effects.