It's like The Rutles, except for Herman's Hermits instead of The Beatles
--Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) supporter Dave Murray
Ripped! is an independent flick from 2013, written and directed by Rod Bingaman, and you risk no loss of film-fan status if you admit you've never heard of it. Hardly anyone's heard of it. I stumbled across a listing for it on Amazon some time back, thought the concept seemed cute (and certainly unique), and I finally got around to watching it a few weeks ago. Ripped! can rightly claim one all-time accolade as its very own:
It is the Citizen Kane of Herman's Hermits pastiche movies.
Sure, it's also the Plan 9 From Outer Space of Herman's Hermits pastiche movies, the Ishtar of Herman's Hermits pastiche movies, the Heaven's Gate of Herman's Hermits pastiche movies, the Zardoz, West Side Story, Showgirls, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein of Herman's Hermits pastiche movies. Not a really crowded field, those Herman's Hermits pastiche movies. But Ripped! is indeed one enjoyable, unassuming little hoot of a Herman's Hermits pastiche movie, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I enjoy any actual Herman's Hermits movie.
A little bit o' background here: I love Herman's Hermits, and none of the seeming snark above should lead you to forget that fact. I love many of the Hermits' records, especially "No Milk Today" and "A Must To Avoid," but also including all of their big hits and many of their lesser-known tracks. I saw a bar-band line up of Herman's Hermits (minus Peter Noone) at a nightclub in 1978 (right in the same time frame that I was seeing The Ramones and The Runaways, The Kinks, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and The Flashcubes), and I thought they put on an impressive British Invasion rock 'n' roll show. I saw Peter Noone with his new wave band The Tremblers in 1981 or '92, and saw Noone and his current collection o' Hermits about two years ago, and those were both terrific concerts, too. I have nothing negative to say about ol' Herm, Derek Leckenby, Karl Green, Keith Hopwood, and Barry Whitwam, nor about their records.
Their movies? Different story. Herman's Hermits made awful movies.
My thoughts were different when I was a lad of six in 1967, and I went with my sister to see Herman and his Hermits in Hold On! I'm sure I loved it then, and I loved the soundtrack LP when I scored a used copy of it about a decade later. But when I tried to watch Hold On! again as an adult, I couldn't bear to finish it. Same story when I tried to watch Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter, nor could I muster up much interest for Herman's Hermits' supporting role in the bland When The Boys Meet The Girls. I love jukebox musicals, from The Girl Can't Help It through A Hard Day's Night, Elvis Presley in Loving You through That Thing You Do! (The Greatest Movie Ever Made), The Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High School, The Monkees in Head, even much-maligned vehicles like The Dave Clark Five's Having A Wild Weekend and Sonny & Cher's Good Times, maybe Bloodstone's Train Ride To Hollywood. Hell, I'll cop to a frequent fondness of Frankie & Annette beach flicks--ya can't beat Harvey Lembeck, man--and I dig American Hot Wax enough that I forgive its approach of fantastical fiction masquerading as fact. I've even come up with fanciful li'l pipe dreams of my own jukebox musicals Jukebox Express, Let's Go Out Tonight, and The Bay City Rollers in Catch Us If You Can. But Herman's Hermits movies? No. The Lord says love the singers, hate the singers' films.
So the idea of a 2013 parody of 1967's Hold On!, starring fictional Brits Norman's Normans in place of Herm and the lads, was not a sure thing. The trailer and description seemed intriguing, but my expectations were very, very low. I figured it would be either condescending or dumb, possibly both, and inevitably a pointless waste of time.
But it was fun!
I mean, it was dumb, if willfully so; it's difficult to make a movie about a fictional '60s British pop group accidentally rocketed to a planet inhabited solely by women--a planet at war with the estranged men of their neighboring world--where the music of Norman's Normans conquers all and makes everything gear and free, luv...well, it's kinda hard to try to pull all that off without risking a few extraneous brain cells. "Dumb" would seem the smart path to take here. The ending is rushed and anticlimactic, the result of filmmakers rashly deciding Right, that's enough! when the ready supply of time, money, motivation, and/or patience evaporates before the story's been finished. Ripped!'s virtues outweigh its shortcomings. I can't explain how the makers of Ripped! were able to maintain just the right tone throughout. It's not really camp, nor does it seem to be slumming. It believes in itself, in the moment. It's not smug, and it embraces its own ludicrous identity with casual but undeniable pride. I was expecting parody. Instead, I was rewarded with a loving pastiche of a silly little pop movie I saw when I was seven years old. The pastiche, miraculously, feels more sincere and real than the borderline-cynical B-movie that inspired it.
The music's cool, too. Going back to the Rutles comparison, the beauty of the music from that 1978 Beatles parody All You Need Is Cash is that The Rutles' tracks sound like perfectly swell pop music, even apart from their corresponding on-screen hijinks. Norman's Normans sound similarly fab, and Ripped!'s opening number "9-9-9!" has already found a place on our weekly This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlists. A band doesn't have to actually exist to make decent pop records. I bought Norman's Normans' six-song Music From Ripped! as a download from normansnormans.bandcamp.com; "9-9-9!" and "Down On My Knees" are the Fave Rave Top Gear Picks T'Click, but "(I'm In Love With) The Queen Mother" and--of course!--"Mr. Brown" are snappy like Mr. White's boys The Wonders, and "Man In The Moon" and "Come With Me (Beam Trip)" add appropriate atmosphere. I realize that Norman's Normans aren't, y'know, real, but it wouldn't break my heart to hear more from whoever crafted their peppy little tunes.
Ripped! will never be anyone's favorite film. But it's gentle, confident, and gawkily charming, at home in its own distinct skin. It's the movie equivalent of the best Herman's Hermits songs. At long last, there is a movie worthy of Herman's Hermits. Even if Herman's Hermits aren't actually in it.
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