Wonderwall is the title of a 1968 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 by first-time director Joe Massot

Joe Massot

Joe Massot was a writer and director who was most notable for the film Wonderwall which featured George Harrison's first soundtrack, and the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains The Same...

 that starred Jack MacGowran

Jack MacGowran

John Joseph "Jack" MacGowran was an Irish character actor, whose last film role was as the alcoholic director Burke Dennings in The Exorcist. He was probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett.-Stage career:...

, Jane Birkin

Jane Birkin

Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE is an English-born actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.- Early life :...

, Richard Wattis

Richard Wattis

Richard Cameron Wattis , was an English character actor.He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and Bromsgrove School, after which he worked for the family electrical engineering firm before becoming a professional actor. After his debut with Croydon Repertory Theatre he made many stage...

, Irene Handl

Irene Handl

-Life:Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father and French mother. She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike...

, and Iain Quarrier, and featured cameos

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

 by Anita Pallenberg

Anita Pallenberg

Anita Pallenberg is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of the guitarist of the same band Keith Richards, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two surviving...

 and Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 designers The Fool

The Fool (design collective)

The Fool were a Dutch design collective and band who were influential in the psychedelic style of art in British popular music in the late 1960s. The colourful art draws on many fantastical and mystical themes...

 (who were also set designers for the film). The film is best remembered for its soundtrack, composed by then-Beatle George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

.

The film provides the name for the Oasis

Oasis (band)

Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...

 track "Wonderwall

Wonderwall (song)

"Wonderwall" is a song by English rock band Oasis, written by the band's guitarist and main songwriter Noel Gallagher. The song was produced by Owen Morris and Gallagher for their second album, Morning Glory?...

", which was inspired by George Harrison's score.

Plot

The story of the film revolves around the reclusive, eccentric scientist Oscar Collins (MacGowran), whose next-door neighbours are a pop photographer (Quarrier) and his girlfriend/model (Birkin), named Penny Lane. Discovering a beam of light streaming through a hole in the wall between them, Collins follows the light and spots Penny modelling for a photo shoot. Intrigued, he begins to make more holes, as days go by and they do more photo sessions. Oscar gradually becomes infatuated with the girl, and feels a part of the couple's lives, even forsaking work to observe them. When they quarrel and the couple split, Penny takes an overdose of pills and passes out, but Oscar comes to her rescue.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 was composed by Beatle

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

, whom Massot approached specially for the project. Harrison had never done a film soundtrack, and told Massot he did not know how, but when Massot promised to use whatever Harrison created, Harrison took the job.

Deciding to make the soundtrack a kind of introduction to Indian music

Music of India

The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

, Harrison recorded a series of short raga

Raga

A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...

s at EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

's recording studio

Recording studio

A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...

 in Bombay

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 in January 1968, then a selection of rock and other musical styles, at De Lane Lea Studios

De Lane Lea Studios

De Lane Lea Studios is a recording studio, currently based in Dean Street, Soho, London, England, UK. Although the studios have mainly been used for dubbing feature films and television programmes, major artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink...

 in London, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Timing the segments with a stopwatch as he watched the unfinished film, Harrison built up a healthy, varied musical programme. The soundtrack album (Wonderwall Music

Wonderwall Music

Wonderwall Music is George Harrison's first solo album and the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall. The songs are virtually all instrumental, except for some non-English vocals and a slowed-down spoken word track. The songs were recorded in December 1967 in England, and January 1968 in Bombay, India...

), the first "solo" Beatles record, was released in November 1968 by Apple Records

Apple Records

Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...

 as the company's first LP. Wonderwall Music

Wonderwall Music

Wonderwall Music is George Harrison's first solo album and the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall. The songs are virtually all instrumental, except for some non-English vocals and a slowed-down spoken word track. The songs were recorded in December 1967 in England, and January 1968 in Bombay, India...

also appeared on compact disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 in 1992, during reissues of the Apple catalogue.

Release history

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 on 17 May 1968, with George Harrison, his wife Pattie

Pattie Boyd

Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...

, Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

, his wife Maureen, and the cast members of the film in attendance. The premiere in London was on 12 January 1969. The film won an award, but did not gain a proper distribution deal, and its showings were limited, leading some writers to mistakenly state that the film "was so poor, it was never seen by anyone". A print did finally appear on the American midnight movies circuit in the 1970s, and on home video

Home video

Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...

 in the 1980s and 1990s, all of rather low technical quality.

In 1998, thirty years after the film's release, and with Massot an established film director, he decided to restore and re-release his first film. Harrison's search for master recordings turned up a lyrical song, "In the First Place" by the Remo Four

The Remo Four

The Remo Four were a 1950s-1960s rock band from Liverpool, England. They were contemporaries of The Beatles, and later had the same manager, Brian Epstein...

, which he hadn't submitted the first time around, believing Massot only wanted instrumental music. "In the First Place" was released as a single in 1999. Harrison is believed to have not only produced it, but to sing and play on it, although he asked to be only credited as producer. Massot was happy to include the song in the restored film, which was released to critical acclaim the second time around, and got a distribution deal.

The restored version of Wonderwall is currently available on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 through Rhino Entertainment

Rhino Entertainment

Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, with bonus features.