After 38 Years, Wilson Finally Musters "Smile."

By Chris Morris

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Surf's up, aboard a tidal wave of events tied to this past Tuesday's release of Brian Wilson (news)'s finally completed magnum opus "Smile" from Nonesuch Records.

On Sunday, two full performances of the work were taped at a Burbank soundstage for a DVD release in April by Warner Home Video.

Thursday (Sept. 30), Wilson kicks off a monthlong tour featuring complete performances of "Smile"; stops will include Carnegie Hall in New York (Oct. 12-13) and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (Nov. 2-3). And on Tuesday, Showtime will premiere "Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile," a startling feature documentary about the arduous birthing of the album, directed by David Leaf, Wilson's longtime Boswell.

It took only 38 years to realize the project.

Wilson says today: "I absolutely love it. ... The musicians in 1967 were nowhere near as good as the musicians I have now. They're more angelic singers than the Beach Boys."

"Smile" was of course earmarked as a project for Wilson's band, the Beach Boys. The back story is the stuff of legend.

In 1966, as the group toured without him, Wilson was cutting a complex suite of songs co-authored with lyricist Van Dyke Parks. A wave of advance stories hailed "Smile" as a work of genius.

But Wilson's own apprehension and objections from the other Beach Boys about the album's impressionistic content led to the abandonment of the project in June 1967 -- just as the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released.

Only last year did Wilson decide to complete the album. He turned to his bandleader, Darian Sahanaja, and Parks to pull together the uncompleted third movement of the work. It received a triumphant first public performance at London's Royal Festival Hall in February.

Filmmaker Leaf notes, "It was always a two-act story in search of a happy ending, and Brian wrote the happy ending in the last year."

On record and in live performance, "Smile" -- anchored by three classic Wilson songs, "Heroes and Villains," "Surf's Up" and "Good Vibrations" -- is glorious stuff, and every bit the masterwork it was advertised to be.

But greatness comes at a great price, as "Beautiful Dreamer" makes plain. The film reveals that Wilson almost checked himself into the hospital after renewing work on "Smile" this year.

Leaf says, "It was very scary for those of us who love and know Brian to see him fighting his way through this."

To this day, Wilson, who suffered a massive breakdown after he dropped "Smile" in the '60s, gets butterflies when he performs the album.

"I get nervous as hell," he says. "I get very nervous and very scared."

But, in the end, the story of "Smile" is the story of an artist's victory.

"To tell the story, you have to go into the dark ages of Brian's life, and it's painful to watch," Leaf says. "(But) he's in a place unlike any I've ever witnessed him in before. He's so happy. ... He says he's healed, and it's true."