ARCHIVE VIDEO REVIEW OF THE ROLLING STONES 'VIDEO REWIND'

Stars Bill Wyman, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger & Anita Morris

Bass guitar maestro Bill Wyman, with his signature deadpan charm, plays a security guard at a museum containing artifacts from rock n' roll history: Among these are Mick Jagger in drag, locked inside dusty displayed glass, reanimating and thereafter, he and Bill watch various Stones videos on a computer monitor and even a freezer door (She's So Cold). What's really fun is seeing both Bill and Mick act, doing a surprisingly decent job (Wyman in particular)... introducing videos with actual stories being told and/or the band performing their groovy tunes outright: mostly in the then-current 1980's, with a few rewinds from their previously reining, semi--youthful decade...

Anita Morris & Mick Jagger

Anita Morris from She Was Hot

Yet 1970's videos Angie and It's Only R&R go on too long yet it's nice seeing their former guitar-ringer Mick Taylor (albeit underused on these tracks); while later MTV-era tracks are more fun, being videos as opposed to promos: Like 1973 throwback Waiting on a Friend, where Mick and Keith begin, seated on the steps of the Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti building: strolling down the urban boulevard, meeting up with the other band members in a dive bar. While Miss You, with music from the album and Mick's voice performed for the video, and Emotional Rescue, filmed in funky blue inferred, are edited down but still seem complete...

VideoScore: ****

This was really a promotional piece for the Stone's then-new 1983 album Undercover and includes exploitation style Film Noir inspired videos for Too Much Blood and Undercover (of the Night), both creatively shot yet trying too hard to push the envelope...

Keith part of the Noir Exploitation Video for Undercover

At this point the band were struggling with both middle age and frustration amongst Jagger and Richards, heading for an inevitable (yet ultimately short-lived) creative divorce: Although the lightweight rocker She Was Hot, more befitting to the band's Chuck Berry-inspired origin, provides the best of the Undercover songs and video, involving the band coming unglued in the presence of red-headed siren Anita Morris, co-star of the following year's RUTHLESS PEOPLE, a comedy film that Jagger would provide a forgettable New Wave title track for, and sporadic excerpts of concert footage and interviews are thrown in for good measure, making this a pleasurably nifty gem for those rabid Rolling Stones fans who have everything else.