Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees & George Burns in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Bloated? Yes. Insipid? Decidedly. But if you have a soft spot for the seventies, then all of that can be overlooked when delving into this overproduced, hubristic spectacle of titanic proportions. The film features more of a manifesto than a plot. It deals with the grand issues of commercialism, selling out, good and evil in rock opera style featuring an endless array of the stars of the day including Aerosmith, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper and Earth Wind and Fire, among others. The story, told by the only speaking character, the mayor of Heartland, Mr. Kite (Burns) is about Sgt. Pepper's grandson, Billy Shears (Frampton) who re-forms his grandfathers band with the Henderson brothers (The Bee Gees). They become an instant success and set off for fame and fortune in La La land. Meanwhile, mean Mr. Mustard (Frankie Howerd) sets his sights on Heartland and the magical musical instruments left to it by Sgt. Pepper. Will the boys be able to resist the lure of fame and fortune long enough to save their town?

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This film signaled the beginning of the end of the epic rock musical, with most of the subsequent examples of the form appearing as animated films. If you can set aside its silliness, there are some flashes of fun to be had, including Steve Martin's rendition of Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Aerosmith's cover of Come Together the inspired cover of Got to Get You Into My Life by Earth Wind and Fire and the beautiful cinematography of Owen Roizman. Also appearing in the film are Donald Pleasence and a panoply of stars singing the reprise of the title song at the end of the film, including Carol Channing, Peter Allen, Tina Turner, Connie Stevens and Dame Edna Everage.

You can find this film on DVD and it's available in full on YouTube. I suggest watching it in its best possible format, however, because one of its only redeeming qualities is it's physical beauty. Above is the trailer for it, uploaded to YouTube by throthelens.

Obscurity factor: 3 (somewhat notorious, available on DVD & YouTube)

Connie Stevens and George Burns in Wendy and Me (1964)

After the death of Gracie Allen, George Burns dove back into series television with this fluffy little show. Wendy Conway (Stevens) lives, with her husband Jeff (Ron Harper) in an apartment building owned by George Burns (playing himself, as he did in his eponymous series). Much like Gracie Allen, she confuses things in wonderfully twisted ways and gets into outrageous scrapes. It's interesting to see the familiar format - wacky woman confusing things, George Burns breaking the fourth wall with his monologues - with a completely different cast and setting.

This show wasn't a success. It only lasted a season. It's never been released on DVD, though several episodes have been uploaded to YouTube. Above is part one of The $5000 Chair, uploaded to YouTube by dentelTV1.

Obscurity factor: 9 (not on DVD, largely forgotten, partially available on YouTube)

Murder Can Hurt You (1980)

Obscurity factor: 10

Keeping in the vein of all-star casts in wacky comedies we have this Aaron Spelling TV movie from 1980. It's cartoonish, poorly written and simplistically silly, but for fans of 70's television none of that matters. This caper film relies on knowledge of the popular cop shows of the 1970's and benefits from knowledge of the ubiquitous actors of the era. They're all here - Colombo (Burt Young), Kojak (Gavin MacCleod), Police Woman (Connie Stevens), McCloud (Buck Owens), Starsky (Jamie Farr) and Hutch (John Byner), Ironsides (Victor Buono), Beretta (Tony Danza) - with just a tweak to the names for the sake of parody. The story revolves (dizzily) around The Man in White, who has decided to do in all the dectectives, for reasons of his own. He does his level best and they start meeting bizarre and preposterous ends. But none of that really matters. The only reason to watch this is to see actors you're familiar with broadly lampoon characters you're also familiar with in stereotypical cop show circumstances that are amplified for comedy - it's a self-referential  70's TV fest. If that's not your thing, then you'll want to skip this one. Look for Marty Allen and Jimmie Walker also populating the cast.

No surprise that this one isn't available on DVD. It can be watched on YouTube in its entirety, however, thanks to dalekenbuck.

Obscurity factor: 10