PAUL JONES WITH PINK FLOYD GATHERING FOR 'THE COMMITTEE'

Paul Jones and Robert Langdon Lloyd in THE COMMITTEE Year: 1968 Rating: ***

Best known for being the first Pink Floyd soundtrack, director Peter Sykes's surreal British New Wave THE COMMITTEE feels like a ten-minute concept stretched to an hour... but never drags and has some terrific locations ranging from working-class city to gothic-manor rural...

As Floyd's music, other than sporadic mood-piece fillers (with moments foreshadowing 'Careful With That Axe Eugene), consists of one nifty jam at different speeds... the first is faster-paced, inside a run-of-the-mill/mundane corporate filing room (artistic for the sake of being filmed), where former Manfred Mann singer turned actor Paul Jones works...

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

The other where Syd Barrett replacement David Gilmour strums mellow chunky chords backed by Richard Wright's comparably sunny organ, closing an enigmatic fable that's basically an excuse for murdering anyone who isn't a deep-thinking anti-capitalist intellectual... or something...

Beginning with hitchhiker Jones being picked-up by a shallow/chatty Mercedes Benz driving Tom Kempinski, seeming primed as continual co-star in one of those early-sixties European social commentary thrillers (liken to Roman Polanski's KNIFE IN THE WATER), before getting his car's hood slammed on his neck by that "Central Figure" passenger turned morose office worker, who winds up at the unexplained titular gathering...

Pauline Munro and Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

A mansion-set/woodsy-surrounded locale where THE COMMITTEE features another famous psychedelic act: dark and offbeat performance-artist Arthur Brown, wearing his signature "Fire" candleabra hat... seeming like Satan crashing an innocuous wedding...

Before Jones and square-jawed committee leader Robert Langdon Lloyd discuss the rudimentary murder/revival (still not clear what really happened)... which is semi-intriguing thematic exposition in what could have made an intriguing 90-minute B&W b-crimer without all the pontificating — and giving Pink Floyd some actual tunes.

Paul Jones and Robert Langdon Lloyd in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones and Robert Langdon Lloyd in THE COMMITTEE

Pauline Munro in THE COMMITTEE

Pauline Munro in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones and Tom Kempinski in THE COMMITTEE

Robert Langdon Lloyd in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones and Jimmy Garner in THE COMMITTEE

Tom Kempinski in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Arthur Brown in THE COMMITTEE

Arthur Brown in THE COMMITTEE

Pauline Munro in THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones in THE COMMITTEE

Robert Langdon Lloyd, Paul Jones and Tom Kempinski in THE COMMITTEE

From THE COMMITTEE

Paul Jones credit in THE COMMITTEE

Pink Floyd credited for THE COMMITTEE