My only exposure to The Chesterfield Kings previously was on Little Steven's Underground Garage Show on XM Radio(when I used to have a subscription). This movie definitely sounded promising when I ran across it on Netflix:
"When the Chesterfield Kings debuted their 1960s sound in 1979, they kick-started a garage-rock revival that would last well into the 1980s. Backed by songs from the band's "Where the Action Is!" album and "Surfin' Rampage" LP, this black-and-white avant-garde romp follows the band around the world -- through London, Rome, Paris, Las Vegas and Honolulu -- to pry their hapless drummer from the grip of an evil alien."
Unfortunately this is a case where the synopsis is much better than the movie. Where is The Chesterfield King? is a mish-mash of Plan Nine From Outer Space, The Monkees, A Hard Days Night (especially John Lennon's bathtub scene), The Three Stooges, and Batman with Adam West.
All of those things together still sound like it could be one hell of a movie, but the main failure is with The Chesterfield Kings. If they had played their parts straight, this could have been very entertaining; but in a case of, we're so hip we'll overact and show everyone just how crazy and outrageous we can be, what was left was a 70 minute movie that was hard to sit through. Thank God, it wasn't any longer.
The only parts of the movie that I enjoyed were a guest appearance by Mark Lindsay and an inclusion of a color video (rest of the movie is in black and white) of The Chesterfield Kings performing their song Shelby GT 356 (which was a riff on The Beach Boys).
