Hold On! (1966)

(On Cable TV, October 2021) Too weird not to exist, and yet weird enough to defy description, Hold On! is a super-topical musical comedy from the space-age 1960s that attempts to combine the then-furor for the British musical group Herman’s Hermits (now largely forgotten, but then a nation-wise obsession rivalling the Beatles) with the craze for the space program. That fusion is accomplished by the device of having NASA be asked to rename a space capsule Herman’s Hermit, allowing the band to play themselves as a touring group while the nation grapples with the request and its mania for the band. It’s such a weird and 1960s-specific film that it escapes much critical commentary: the film exists for the group to play their songs (some of them agreeable, but few of them memorable) against a structured comedy backdrop, with a ludicrous climax that sees them take a hypersonic jet to begin their concert in California, witness the launch of “their” capsule in Florida, and return to California in time to wrap up the concert. The 1960s were weird, man—we often recognize the post-1967 years as the hippies-and-Vietnam filled sixties of legend, but the earlier part of the decade was just as interesting and even more appealing, what with its increasing liberalism and bubbly space-age optimism. Hold On! is an illustrative example of that era and I can’t quite get enough of it.