200 Motels (1971)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Directors:

Tony Palmer
Frank Zappa

Writers:

Frank Zappa (story)
Tony Palmer (shooting script)

Release Date:

10 November 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy | Music

Plot:

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring...

Plot Keywords:

Mothers Of Invention | Band | Cult Comedy | Rock 'n' Roll | Redneck

Cast

The Mothers of Invention
Theodore Bikel	...	Rance Muhammitz / Dave
Keith Moon	...	The Hot Nun
Janet Neville-Ferguson	...	Groupie (as Janet Ferguson)
Lucy Offerall	...	Groupie
Jimmy Carl Black	...	Lonesome Cowboy Burt
Martin Lickert	...	Jeff
Dick Barber	...	Bif Debris - The Vacuum Cleaner
Don Preston	...	Don
Pamela Des Barres	...	Interviewer (as Pamela Miller)
Ruth Underwood	...	Fake Drummer
Judy Gridley	...	Chorus Leader
Ringo Starr	...	Larry The Dwarf / Frank Zappa

Also Known As:

Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (USA) (complete title)
Two Hundred Motels

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #23033) | Argentina:16 | Singapore:(Banned) | West Germany:18 | USA:TV-MA | Sweden:11 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Bizarre Productions

Trivia:

People offered parts in the movie included Vivian Stanshall, Mick Jagger, 'John Lennon', Pete Townshend, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Eric Idle.

Quotes:

Lonesome Cowboy Burt: So long as I get some beer and I get paid, you can make me do anything, I'm professional!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Down and Dirty Duck (1974)

Revolutionary video diary & historical (almost) Multimedia show

I watch this remarkable visual document every 5 or 6 months to remind me of the visionary powers of this great composer and musician. Frank Zappa attempts to weld together several totally different worlds of artistic behaviour. There's the nice, successful middle of the road stuff, personalized by Starr and Moon. The traditional Classic music is shown and half-ridiculed. The almost always invisible groupie scene plays it's part (no actresses here, only the real girls)like it did as a short lived musical group the GTO's (the true meaning is lost; some say Girls together only or outrageously) Frank even took one of the groupies ( Miss Lucy ?) into his home to play nanny to his children. Last, but not at all least, are the Mothers. I omit the of invention part as this was the idea of the record company to soften the blow to the female part of America's silent majority. It was the beginning of the Flo and Eddie period, which Frank sometimes explained on stage as the result of a famous DJ saying that he could make the Mothers as big as the Turtles. Well, Frank used to say: If you wanna be as big as the Turtles, have a few Turtles in your band. The movies shows in a half hidden and symbolic way the craziness of the world, the moral dilemma's and the influence of religion on the psychological development of mankind. This is the first big step into Zappa's conceptual continuity idea, which sadly ended with his death. The movie is a monument to his genius.