Product Details

• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: December 7, 1994
• Run Time: 65 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630196943X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,835 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Year of My Life, August 19, 2008

By 

Steve Alpert (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Girl Groups [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I am the credited director and co-producer of this documentary. I was surprised to see that Amazon actually has the video, I thought it was long gone. No DVD's, too bad. I drifted onto Amazon because a good buddy of mine loved this era and I wanted to get a copy for him. Glad to see that Girl Groups, The Story of a Sound still lives, such as it is.

This film took almost a year of my life, a very stressful year at that since it is always difficult to juggle the creative storytelling aspect of making a film with the realities of budget and music/clip clearance. We went to ABC for footage from the show, Hullabaloo that they did not even know they had. We dug up stuff in Detroit. I flew there for a blizzard that winter and found footage from a local afternoon program, Teen Town that was Detroit's local American Bandstand. That stuff was sitting in a damp basement at a TV station in Windsor, Canada on two-inch video, long extinct even then in 1982. This is the station where Soupy Sales got his start for you trivia fans out there.

I conducted all the interviews and must say I fell into major crush with Darlene Love. What a sweetie and I could listen to her sing all day long. As Darlene would say, "She had a voice on HER!" Mary Wilson was a most classy lady, and Arlene Smith was also such a beautiful person - she had voice on HER! Ronnie Spector was lots of fun.

Lieber and Stoller were such cool guys, sitting on top of the world, playing pool in an apartment on Park Avenue. They were such good friends and seemed to really have enjoyed themselves while making music history. Ellie Greenwich was a great story teller, especially about those bad girls from Queens, the Shangri-las.

When I look back to that one year making Girl Groups, despite the difficulties, I never once got tired of the music, and in the editing room in the Brill Building where all that stuff happened in the first place, we must have seen the show 100 times, maybe more. Grahame Weinbren and his team did an amazing job making it what it became, as all great editor/filmmakers do. Grahame had a thing for cheese sandwiches, something I never would ever think of eating before or since then, but every day we'd be chomping on these giant cheese sandwiches from Smilers. Swiss cheese on rye, mayo. How's your cholesterol, Grahame?

One reviewer mentioned that the Supremes sequence in the film was too long. I was always thought so, too, but we had to buy a minimum of ten songs from Motown. At that time, Motown had never licensed any
of their music to any entity outside of Motown. We were the first and it took forever to make the deal with them. Our attorneys closed the deal with Motown, we sent them what we agreed upon, and the masters didn't come. We kept on having to postpone the final mix until those masters showed up, which of course finally did, but not before we ate all the swiss cheese in Manhattan. There was major stress at every turn on this project, but nobody cares about that because the end result was good.

Stephanie Bennett's Delilah Films deserves all the credit for having the guts to begin a project way under budget, but to get what we needed when we needed to have it. Stephanie was always the warrior/producer, fearless, tough, a get-it-done-gal. A great co-producer to have. Cheers, Steph, wherever you are!!!

Steve Alpert

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joyful Ride to the Early 60s Sound with Great Ronettes Sound, February 25, 2004

By 

Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl Groups [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a documentary film about "girl groups," the style and trend of music that flourished in the early 60s. The film is very short (slightly over 60 minutes), but still is worth the money and time you spend, for the following two reasons.

One: its artists. Though the film reveals not particularly incisive view on the girl groups, it still has a lot of great footages about them. As this is not a music video solely devoted to songs, the film's songs are often cut and edited to suit the story the film is telling, but still the impact of watching the real artists are more than you can imagine. And some (6 or 7) songs are complete, many in live. One standout scenes are the Ronettes singing "Shout" and "Be My Baby," and their energetic act (and that's live!) is incredibly exciting. You also see the Supremes, Mary Wells, The Dixie Cups and The Shangri-Las.

The other good point about the film is that it includes the interviews of the people involved in this phonomenon -- Mary Wilson (The Supremes), Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes), Darlene Love (The Blossoms and is virtually the singer of The Crystals), and so on. You also hear some stories from the song writers like Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The fans might have already known what they say, but it is still good to hear their authentic comments, which includes Ronnie Spector recounting how she met Phil Spector, and how he treated her after their marriage.

Many live footages come from the ABC TV show "Shindig," but many of them are not available in Rhino's videos of the same title. So if you are collecting the songs of the era, you might have great fun watching this video.

I almost forgot to say one thing: one footage is in color (it's around 1964!) and that's The Exciters' hit number "Tell Him," which was shot in the most extraordinary place -- in the zoo! See this surreal images, in which the members lyp-sinc in front of a bear and a tiger ... so 60s.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maybe the Best of the 1960s, December 8, 2001

By 

DON M. RAE "JUST A DOO WOP LOVER" (NEW CASTLE, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl Groups [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I am not sure where to begin. I have watched this video so many times since it was released in the early 1980s.I never get tired of it. There are so many great groups and songs it is really difficult to pick a favorite.This video made me a big fan of Darlene Love, I never realized how talented and versatile she was until I watched this tape. I really enjoyed The Angels, Chantels, Ronettes, Exciters because you probably do not get the opportunity to see footage of these groups very often {except for the Ronettes}.My only negatives would be that a little too much time was devoted to The Supremes{ not that I did not enjoy watching them perform} and that a couple of the songs selected for a couple of the artists would not have been my choices.This is going to bring back so many memories. It almost makes you want to cry because that era has passed and very little has been preserved on video like garbage that is popular today.I buy this every year as Christmas gifts for my friends.They just love it. I am ordering another copy today. If you enjoyed the music of the early 60s don't pass this one up.I promise you will not be disappointed.PS I even found the commentary by the artists, songwriters, and producers to be very interesting. I just wish they would do a Volume 2.