Toomorrow (1970): The Lost Olivia Newton-John Sci-Fi Musical That Was Meant to Launch a Trilogy

When I first started to watch this clip from Toomorrow, I initially thought that it was a very cleverly rendered pastiche of late 1960s pop music.  The colours were spot on, the costumes were groovy and the music very much of its time.  Then I had a wait a second moment because the girl singer in the clip looked remarkably like a young, pre-Grease Olivia Netwon-John (or Neutron-Bomb as we would sometimes call her).   Sure enough, a little research (OK, reading the video's information) told me that it was indeed a 21 year old ONJ, from a 1970 science-fiction musical (the first?). It was about a band kidnapped by aliens (a couple pictured below) to save their species… with music. I’m not alone in thinking this was a modern-day, very clever take on the late Sixties.  Many people have commented on this on YouTube, with one saying: was going to comment that this is the most period-accurate sendup I've ever seen... then realized why it's so "accurate".

If anything, that made me scratch my head even more, because being a bit of a science-fiction buff, I might not have been old enough to watch this movie on its first release, but I would almost certainly have caught it later on TV (and it looks harmless enough to be repeated ad infinitum as part of summertime scheduling) or on video release. That was, after all, how I had discovered a number of films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Planet of the Apes and Barbarella – I could go on.  There was a treasure trove of films from the late sixties for me to get my teenage paws on.  But not Toomorrow.  I had not even the vaguest recollection of this film – and I would almost certainly have given it a watch had I known of its existence, particularly because of Newton-John’s subsequent global stardom. 

The film follows four students – and following Monkees tradition they share their names with the actors.  There’s Olivia (Newton-John), Benny (Thomas), Vic (Cooper) and Karl (Chambers).  To supplement their income while studying, they form a band, the eponymous Toomorrow.  The clip below has them singing Taking Our Own Sweet Time. I was slightly disappointed that Austin Powers didn't pop up somewhere with a "Yeah, baby, Yeah!" to be honest.

Their proto synthesiser, the tonaliser (!), attracts the attention of a race of aliens called the Alphoids, who think that the vibrations generated by Toomorrow’s tunes have a special property that could save their civilization (best not to ask how, eh?).  So, they abduct the band and take them to the Alphoid home world. While they are initially resistant, the band perform their music to help the Alphoids get their own particular groove back.  It all seems to be a little Galaxy Quest, and certainly the film’s central joke is the cosmic importance suddenly assigned to a few inconsequential humans.  After they have helped, the band are returned to Earth, with Olivia waking up thinking it all might have been a strange dream (oh dear). Here's the new trailer, which has been restored by the British Film Foundation and Deaf Crocodile from the original negatives. So, to answer your question, yes, the restoration is self-evidently gorgeous and you can now watch Toomorrow in all its psychedelic glory.

That’s the plot and the trailer, but the story behind the movie is even more of a shaggy dog tale.  It was originally conceived by Don Kirshner (the man behind the Monkees’ music) and James Bond producer Harry Saltzman.  The plan was for three pictures to launch a new franchise and make money, money, money.  It looks like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it? Yet apparently before long, the two men loathed each other.  The director, Val Guest (Quatermass, The Day the Earth Caught Fire), apparently wasn’t paid for any of his work – and neither was anyone else who worked on the production. As such, Guest obtained an injunction just after the film’s premier, meaning that it could not be shown until he and the others had been paid.  And he never got paid. While that sounds a little like biting off your nose to spite your face, (the film couldn’t make any money if it wasn’t being shown, after all), the result was that after just a few public performances, the film would not be shown in public again for decades.  So, that’s why I never encountered it during the vintage sci-fi video frenzy I experienced in my teens.

Of course, we all know Olivia Newton-John, but her three bandmates were all working musicians prior to Tomorrow and continued to work in the industry long after.  Benny Thomas’ work is predominantly in television, but he did release a solo album as late as 2004 (through Olivia’s own record label, so they obviously remained friends long after the film).  Vic Cooper went on to work with Tom Jones and as a multi-instrumentalist enjoyed a long career as pianist and musician.  Finally, Karl Chambers continued to drum and was long associated with the Philadelphia music scene.  So Kirshner's plan was (as previously with The Archies and The Monkees) to create a group whose members could both perform the music and act as their fictionalised selves as well.

The film also included an uncredited appearance by Shakira Baksh, who would go on to marry Michael Caine and become Shakira, Lady Caine. The union was a happy one, lasting 52 years.

Perhaps it is just as well Toomorrow failed so spectacularly.  Had it been successful and gone on to complete its planned trilogy, Olivia Newton-John’s career might have followed a very different trajectory.  At the very least, it would have been very unlikely that she would have been later considered for the role of Sandy Olsson  in 1978’s Grease (and had she made a mint from the Toomorrow Trilogy, she probably wouldn't have bothered).  While Toomorrow began as an ambitious attempt by Don Kirshner and Harry Saltzman to launch a new pop group and film franchise, their best-laid plans came to naught.  Ultimately, Toomorrow has become a curious if not groovy footnote in Sci-fi musical history (as well as Newton-John’s career) and perhaps, it was all for the best.