The film acquired an especially strange afterlife through critic Michael Fremer's experience at a Boston screening. Fremer watched All This and World War II while high on LSD and initially responded as if he had discovered a daring piece of psychedelic cinema. Convinced by that first impression, he invited prominent radio personalities, music commentators, and film critics to attend a subsequent showing. About ten minutes into the event, however, the spell broke: Fremer realized that the film's frantic juxtaposition of World War II imagery with often-derided Beatles cover versions was not brilliant avant-garde satire but, in his judgment, a terrible movie. His reversal became an apt miniature of the production's reception. A few defenders praised its reckless, absurd collage style, but most critics found the project tacky, offensive, historically glib, or simply incompetent. The episode also reflects the film's distinctly mid-1970s collision of psychedelic viewing culture, rock mythology, and grandiose attempts to turn historical catastrophe into pop spectacle.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The LSD Screening That Turned a Beatles War Epic from Genius into a Disaster
Michael Fremer and All This and World War II / 1970s
The film acquired an especially strange afterlife through critic Michael Fremer's experience at a Boston screening. Fremer watched All This and World War II while high on LSD and initially responded as if he had discovered a daring piece of psychedelic cinema. Convinced by that first impression, he invited prominent radio personalities, music commentators, and film critics to attend a subsequent showing. About ten minutes into the event, however, the spell broke: Fremer realized that the film's frantic juxtaposition of World War II imagery with often-derided Beatles cover versions was not brilliant avant-garde satire but, in his judgment, a terrible movie. His reversal became an apt miniature of the production's reception. A few defenders praised its reckless, absurd collage style, but most critics found the project tacky, offensive, historically glib, or simply incompetent. The episode also reflects the film's distinctly mid-1970s collision of psychedelic viewing culture, rock mythology, and grandiose attempts to turn historical catastrophe into pop spectacle.
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