This 50-minute video (which has a very strange release history) is not only lots of fun, but also a crash course in a lot of what was right and wrong with the bands in the British beat boom of 1963-64. Based on its artistic merits, Go-Go Big Beat would command an extremely low rating -- none of the instruments or singers are miked, the miming is often atrocious, and only about half the songs constitute the kind of material that many of us would choose to listen to by the groups involved. On the other hand, some of the instruments (including lots of Vox guitars) are cool to see, plugged in or not, and there are entertaining lessons to be learned here watching acts like the Merseybeats, the Cockneys, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and the Migil Five (who look incredibly uncomfortable trying to rock out, its members at least 10 years older than any of the other musicians here). The bands that didn't make it -- and some of them had above-average songs -- had a look that simply didn't excite, or came off as lightweights in the way they presented themselves, barely taking the trouble to look like they were playing their instruments; in fact, most of their efforts were directed toward keeping in step with one other. But the Hollies, the Animals, and Lulu & the Luvvers throw themselves 100% into their miming as though they were really in a concert setting, and their clips are extraordinary. Go-Go Big Beat was originally an 82-minute feature made up of the short films Swinging UK and UK Swings Again, featuring these bands and the three excessively proper deejays introducing them; they were linked to a ballet film, produced and directed by Kenneth Hume, called Mods and Rockers, depicting leather-jacketed and Edwardian-garbed toughs duking it out in sub-West Side Story fashion, all set to songs written by the Beatles (but recorded on the soundtrack by the Liverpool band the Cheynes). In the background, a very effeminate young black teenager watches the fighting and stares admiringly at the statue of a naked gladiator, and, at the end, walks off arm-in-arm with a male biker. This was pretty bizarre stuff to try and sell to teens, and apart from the homoerotic content, a lawsuit by the Beatles ensued over a publicity campaign. Mods and Rockers has disappeared from this version of Go-Go Big Beat, leaving only the 50 minutes of music interludes that Hume originally bought simply to pad out his "ballet" film. There's enough good -- or revealingly bad -- stuff throughout to make this release a good candidate for DVD release, despite its shortcomings. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide