DECEMBER 16, 1971 – Frank Zappa’s film “200 Motels” (released in the US on November 10, 1971) opened in the UK at London’s Piccadilly Classic Cinema. The film was cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starred The Mothers of Invention, and drummers Ringo Starr (made up as a Zappa lookalike) and The Who’s drummer Keith Moon (as the hot nun).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. In the storyline, The Mothers of Invention are on tour and 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 long cartoon interlude 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. Almost every scene is drenched with video special effects (double and triple exposures, solarization, false color, speed changes, etc.) which were innovative in 1971. The film has been dubbed a “surrealistic documentary”.
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