Color, 1970, 93 mins. 47 secs.
Directed by Val Guest
Starring Olivia Newton-John, Roy Dotrice, Benny Thomas, Vic Cooper, Karl Chambers, Tracey Crisp, Imogen Hassall, Margaret Nolan, Roy Marsden
Deaf Crocodile (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), BFI (Blu-ray) (UK RB HD) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9), Pickwick (DVD) (UK R0 PAL) / WS (2.35:1)

Though nearly every reviewer at the time called it Olivia Newton-John's big screen debut when Grease took the box office by storm in 1978, the beloved pop singer already had two films to her credit by that point-- but very few people had actually seen them. After making her debut in the quirky 1965 sheep-coloring Christmas family film Funny Things Happen Down Under in Australia, she was recruited to join a shake-and-bake pop band called Toomorrow to star in a sci-fi musical for producers Harry Saltzman of James Bond fame and The Monkees impresario Don Kirshner. The project started shooting in late 1968 and was jinxed from the start, with the producers clashing and director Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) working long after his stipulated contract and eventually suing the block the film for non-payment. As a result, Toomorrow ran for only a few days in the U.K., got a slight theatrical release in Japan, had an instantly ineffective soundtrack release, and then vanished without a trace for decades.

Of course, Newton-John went on to massive success with albums like Physical and revisited the fantastic musical concept with Xanadu, but this film remained an odd footnote in reference guides that no one could actually see until a nicely preserved print popped up in the late '90s and early '00s on two occasions as part of the American Cinematheque's Mods and Rockers series with Guest in attendance both times (and Newton-John at one). After that, letterboxed bootleg copies started turning up including a VHS-sourced Japanese scan (with burned-in subtitles) of the one print owned by Nippon, followed by an atrocious 2012 U.K. DVD from Pickwick loaded with mastering errors, tape glitches, and audio missing entirely in the left channel. A somewhat better streaming option later turned up from Screenbound, taken from the same source with the more blatant issues fixed but still far from ideal. It may have taken over half a century, but a worthy presentation finally turned up in 2026 on Blu-ray as a special edition from Deaf Crocodile, followed shortly after by a U.K. option from the BFI. (Both of them collaborated on the restoration, which looks spectacular.)

As for the film itself, imagine a mash-up of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Barbarella and you're in the ballpark of what to expect here. Hovering close to Earth, the alien Alphoid race has detected an advanced vibration indicating that the human race could be fit to join other interstellar species in a new shift towards stellar harmony. The source of that special sound is Toomorrow, a new college band formed by roomies Olivia Newton-John, Benny Thomas, Vic Cooper, and Karl Chambers, all using their real names. One of the aliens (Dotrice) uses his trademark human guise to visit Earth under the name John Williams to investigate the plucky musical teens, who are mostly distracted with their sex lives and having politically active campus sit-ins. More complications ensue including another male alien taking on the form of Benny's bedmate, voluptuous music professor Dr. Johnson (Goldfinger's Nolan), to seduce Vic, with the entire band eventually zapped onto the spaceship for a big reveal before they can do their first big public show.

A sort of utopitan feel-good space musical for the British counterculture, Toomorrow is loaded with surprising names including another 007 vet, Oscar winner John Stears, handling the flashy special effects, and future Ken Russell staple Dick Bush handling the spacious scope cinematography. Stepping in when John Barry proved unavailable, Hugo Montenegro also delivers a great spacey music score that was represented well on the soundtrack LP as well, and the bubblegum pop-flavored songs themselves are all very catchy and delivered with great energy. All of that makes it a shame the film was hobbled as soon as it got out of the gate, but anyone coming upon it today will be surprised by its genre-bending exuberance and racial and sexual egalitarianism. As soon as you see the flatmates casually hopping in and out of the bathtub while they're making breakfast in the kitchen, it's clear we aren't in Monkees territory here.

Though its protracted production meant that Toomorrow looked quaint when it hit theaters the same years as films like Performance, time has been very kind to it with the sunny, sexy, utterly weird vibe gradually earning it a minor cult following among those lucky enough to see it. The Blu-ray makes for a great way to make its acquaintance, with color and detail now finally looking immaculate with the 2.35:1 framing looking much better here than the very zoomed-in previous options. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono track is also impeccable and features optional English SDH subtitles. It's worth noting that, as was common at the time (perhaps most famously with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), the songs heard in the film differ significantly from the mixes and vocals created for the soundtrack, particularly "Goin' Back."

A new commentary by Andrew Sandoval is very well-researched and thorough including histories of the band members, attempts to keep the group going after Chambers left right before the film's release, the rocky production and release, and related musical trends from the time. In "Musical Humanism Through the Stars" (11m56s), Celeste de la Cabra explores the film's more diversified group makeup than many of its peers, the quirks of fate that kept the film out of the public eye, and the use of sci-fi-friendly elements like the synthesizer. Then you get a peek at some very early Val Guest work with 1942's The Nose Has It (8m3s) with Arthur Askey hosting a Ministry of Information guide to stay healthy and avoid nasty germs from nostrils of all shapes and sizes. A 1998 Guest interview with his wife Yolande Donlan as part of The Guardian lecture series (64m56s) features the always engaging filmmaker in fine form sharing stories about his career, and then things get very bizarre with Bernard Coyne's 1969 black-and-white, avant-garde short If I Could Turn You On (12m43s) shot at one of the film's locations, the Camden Roundhouse, featuring lots of chanting, screaming, acrobatics, and bare butts. Finally an audio interview with Guest from 1988 with Roy Fowler for the British Entertainment History Project (10m2s), with new video accompaniment by Someone's Favorite Productions, features a summary of his experiences making this film including the discovery of Newton-John at a cabaret, Kirshner's ill-advised attempt to have her do a love scene, and the whole legal mess that kept the film tied up. The limited edition packaging, which features a hard slipcase with art by Beth Morris, comes with illustrated 60-page booklet with three written pieces. In “Val and Yo,” Deaf Crocodile’s Dennis Bartok surveys the marriage and professional careers of the married couple, which ran through films both momentous and absurd (and you can decide which category this particular title falls into). You also get a transcript of Bartok’s 2002 interview with Guest at the second American Cinematheque screening, which is a great chat including the film’s odd production and the role it played it splitting up Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli in the Bond series. Also included is an appreciative appraisal by Walter Chaw (whose name-dropping of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is very on-point) and the importance of respecting the young and their artistic tastes.

Deaf Crocodile (Blu-ray)

Screenbound (Streaming)

Pickwick (DVD)

Reviewed on June 10, 2026