A compilation of British groups of 1964 who were big hits...in Britain. The film is bookended with Beatles live in concert doing "She Loves You" and "Twist and Shout". That footage is great and the constant screaming and views of the female audience are amusing.The rest of the film varies. It's shot in strong color and the songs are performed on very interesting sets...but not all the songs are good. Highlights are Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas doing "Little Children"; the Four Pennies doing "Julie"; the Animals doing "House of the Rising Sun" (look for the moment when the lead singer forgets to lip sync a word!) and Peter and Gordon doing "Please Lock Me Away". Also Sounds Incorporated jump around a lot and overact to a degree that's almost embarrassing.The rest of the acts range from OK to pretty terrible--the Nashville Boys will have you reaching for the fast forward button. Also the lip syncing and fake playing of instruments is pretty obvious. But this is interesting to watch and a valuable time capsule of the "British invasion" of the early 1960s. A must see if you're a 1960s music fan. I give it a 7.

I saw this movie on cable the other day. I was very surprised at how many great British pop artists appeared. Some obscure (at least to me) bands like The Rocking Berries, Fourmost, Tommy Quickly & The Remo 4 and Susan Maughan. I should have known more about these artists as I am no spring chicken and I loved this music.The best surprise was a very pretty singer named Billie Davis. She was also unknown to me but not to British fans of pop as she still performs in shows with her friend Jet Harris. I got an immediate crush on this girl and she was just 18 years old in this film. She is now 61 but still quite pretty as I discovered from her fan site. Try and get her CD of her best stuff from her Decca years.Many great performances make this a snapshot in time of the British invasion pop scene and well worth your time.

This film was definitely made for British audiences, so please understand that I am speaking as an American pop film/music aficionado who was only 9 when POP GEAR was made. There are only a handful of songs in this film that ever made it to the American charts, and some of these groups never had ANY hits on our side of the Atlantic (the Rocking Berries? the Four Pennies?). Highlights: 1. Beatles doing live versions of SHE LOVES YOU and TWIST AND SHOUT, with some mixing problems on the vocals. 2. Animals and Herman's Hermits doing their hits. 3. Laughable version of the William Tell Overture played by "Sounds Incorporated" (another group that never crossed the pond). 4. A reminder that pop groups actually used to dress in a civilized manner, even creepy singers like Eric Burdon or the guys from The Nashville Teens. Lowlights: 1. Obvious lip-synching and thick pancake makeup on all faces. 2. Reminder of how lame "pop music" set design was in the 60s. Some sets are fairly interesting; others look like the budget ran out. 3. Silly dance routine with guys and girls in suits and dresses. 4. Matt Munro looking like a chunky middle-aged businessman. What's he doing with all the young mop-tops? 5. British readers will probably jump on me here, but who is this idiot MC named Savile? Did you actually take this moron seriously for decades on TV? I can't believe he got a knighthood. He looks like a bad Marty Feldman character. Come on...the guy was almost 40 in this picture and he's trying vainly to look "hip" - and where was his hairdresser? He should have been booted simply for predicting that the "Rocking Berries" would be the next BIG THING! In summary, this is a harmless, sometimes fun pop collection to remind old folks like me of the sounds of the mid-60s. But its endless parade of look-alike and sound-alike groups show why the British invasion fizzled after a few years.*** October 2012 ADDITION *** Guess I was right about Jimmy Savile, eh?

I just caught this this morning. Pop Gear is a British film recapping some pop hits of 1964 with staged performances by bands such as The Spencer Davis Group, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, and many others. Concert footage of the Beatles (singing She Loves You and Twist and Shout) opens and closes the film. The producer assumes familiarity, an intimacy between performers and audience, to the extent that the Master of Ceremonies (whose hair resembles a worn-out blond mop) never bothers to introduce himself, nor does he bother to introduce many of the pop groups by name. This is irksome for a lay cultural historian like myself, but that's the way it was, baby. There's a lot of good music and the songs are generally rather brief - 2 minutes on average. A cinematic, widescreen variety show, with more hits than misses. Recommended for fans of 60s radio pop.