The Beatles Films Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus Jan 20, 2025

Show notes

In December 1968 Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who next month filmed The Beatles for the Let It Be/Get Back sessions, shot this circus-themed showcase for the post-psychedelic rock movement, starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono fronting supergroup The Dirty Mac, which also featured Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell. Between performances the Rolling Stones introduced acts like The Who and Taj Mahal, and there were pieces to camera from John and Yoko with Mick Jagger.

We ask: Beatles or Stones: is it a stupid question? Why was the film, like so much of the Get Back footage, shelved for so long, only seeing a release in 1996? Why didn't The Beatles perform here as a group? And was Yoko Ono subverting the gendered norms of the rock 'n' roll vocal performance by wailing a lot?

You can pick up the DVD cheaply to watch the whole film, or watch most of the Rock and Roll Circus on YouTube, on a Stones official playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA26O6DcPwiaMAzvHCrOqZmnE46UyQQjU
Watch Britpop Now, the programme we mention from 1995 presented by Damon Albarn: https://youtu.be/skb6lVS35Jk
The documentary Matt mentions is Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, available to rent online: https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/catching-fire-the-story-of-anita-pallenberg
Performance is available to rent online too: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/performance
The Netflix documentary about his 1968 comeback special is Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley: https://www.netflix.com/title/81462290

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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Lennon Naked Jan 13, 2025

Show notes

Next up: it's the 2010 BBC TV movie starring Christopher Eccleston as John Lennon, and Andrew Scott as Paul McCartney. We get into the film's approach, in which it frames the story around John's meetings with his father, and ask how successfully it makes the point it's trying to: that Freddie Lennon's abandoning him was the main catalyst for John's emotional turmoil, and that primal scream therapy allowed him to overcome it.

We look too at Eccleston's performance, and ask how he stacks up against the other Lennon big hitters like Ian Hart and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. And does the film do Yoko Ono a disservice?

You can pick up Lennon Naked on DVD.
The BBC website has a page on the film with a couple of clips: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sv451
The Second Coming, the other Eccleston performance that Ed mentions: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353104/
Christopher Fairbank in Eastenders, playing Eddie Knight, a very similar character to Freddie Lennon: https://youtu.be/dTa6ZhOa-6s

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The Beatles: The First US Visit Jan 06, 2025

Show notes

Many viewers of last year's Beatles '64 seemed to ask the question: "Why does this exist when we already have The First US Visit?" So we thought we'd have a go at an answer. This is a 1991 re-edit of the Maysles brothers' original 1964 Granada TV film What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA, and a much straighter, more chronological telling of the short tour's story using much of the same footage. We ask how this compares to Beatles '64, and in particular we discuss the effect of having no narration or talking heads, and whether this creates a void of context that needs filling. Apple later bought the rights and released it on DVD in 2004, and we look at how Apple's approach to documentary releases differs 20 years on, now the Beatles legacy project is in full swing.

You can pick up the Apple DVD easily enough. The film is also on archive.org at the moment, but who knows for how long ... https://g.co/kgs/Y26cAuf
The "making of" documentary included on the DVD, which we both generally preferred to the film itself: https://youtu.be/38jmSpSPujY
The best we can do for a copy of What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA is here, but it's only 38 minutes of what should be an hour and 21, so: https://archive.org/details/vts-01-3_202011
7 Seconds by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry, the soundtrack to Ed's 1994 French exchange: https://youtu.be/wqCpjFMvz-k
We Love You Beatles by The Carefrees: as Matt warns, listen at your own risk: https://youtu.be/Hj3A3WcjBDE

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Paul McCartney making mashed potatoes (Christmas special) Dec 25, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to this year's Christmas special in which we, the fearless investigative journalists that we are, refuse to be silenced and meet head-on the issue the mainstream media doesn't want us to: can Paul McCartney make mashed potatoes?

On 17 December 1998 Paul took part in a live webcast to promote Wide Prairie, a compilation album of Linda's songs, released six months after her death in April 1998. In it he fronted a cookery segment in which he made mashed potatoes as part of a promotion for her book: Linda McCartney on Tour: Over 200 Meat-free Dishes from Around the World. We ask: does his addition of raw onions into the dish represent a bold embrace of the avant garde, betraying the influence of Stockhausen? How significant is it that Paul chose the DIY ethic of a webcast whose content he could control when he was grieving for his wife? And how else did Paul and George Harrison interact with the early internet from the late nineties?

Merry Christmas and thanks as always for your support this year. We'll be back with season six in January.

Watch the whole webcast (this link will also take you straight to the mashed potatoes segment): https://youtu.be/plrN81ISkh4?si=XM2FPqDxsQzdmxdv&t=3768
Some info about The Fireman webcast from 2 October 1998, although no footage is available (unless you've got some?): https://lostmediawiki.com/The_Fireman_(lost_live_Youth_and_Paul_McCartney%27s_band_internet_webcast;_1998)
Watch Grateful Dead: A Photofilm by Paul and Linda McCartney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7NkYfJCYc
An example of The Big Breakfast, the 1990s UK TV show with a similar crew-participation ethic: https://youtu.be/LFqPHv7nh1A
The clip from Sleepless in Seattle we mention: https://youtu.be/BHs6iLRvAQM

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Beatles '64 Nov 29, 2024

Show notes

ANOTHER new Beatles film. It's almost as if the runaway (for which read: very underwhelming) success of a podcast on the subject has led to a surfeit of new releases.

And underwhelming is the key word here: yes, Peter Bradshaw can somehow write a five-star review in the Guardian without once mentioning whether the actual film is good or bad, but for those of us at the coalface of Beatles films appraisal it's a bit more nuanced. What is the film actually trying to say? How much work have Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr put into this official Apple release? Fair enough, they're in their eighties, but still. And does the mention of Martin Scorsese suggest more prestige than the film actually delivers?

You can watch Beatles '64 on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/beatles-64/mxZO6yBpYWOq
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/XLzMtQJnH8k
See Paul's Instagram story which was definitely shot on the same day he did his interview for this film: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6gxsThsAOV/
Leonard Bernstein talking about the Beatles in the 1967 documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution: https://youtu.be/v32U0mjGz6g
Elaine Kim's cover of All My Loving, as used in the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFx2LZB7D4

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Midas Man Oct 30, 2024

Show notes

It's taken a while to get here, but Brian Epstein biopic Midas Man, starring Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, is released on Prime Video today, 30 October 2024. We got a chance to see it at an advance screening and we think there's lots in there for Beatles fans to enjoy. Among the items up for discussion here: the performances as the Beatles by Jonah Lees, Blake Richardson, Leo Harvey-Elledge, Campbell Wallace and Adam Lawrence are all excellent. Did being less central characters free the actors up to focus more on mannerisms and delivery? Could you transplant them straight into the Sam Mendes biopics on this basis? How well does the film get around not being able to use Lennon/McCartney songs?

Watch Midas Man on Prime Video. We understand this is a release in the UK only for now, with international release to be confirmed: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Midas-Man/0L8KQBPKMK7JQHBNO8K7KBOK2K
Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDYxAwoUWk
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12627606/
Jacob Fortune-Lloyd's article about finding the character of Brian: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/understanding-brian-epstein
The story of Dizz Gillespie, represented in the film as Tex Ellington, is told both in The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, and by Devin McKinney at https://www.heydullblog.com/brian-epstein/the-dizz-gillespie-story/
IMDb and trailer for 2021's Creation Stories, with a clip of Leo-Harvey Elledge (George in Midas Man) as Liam Gallagher: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5693182/
Vanity Fair doing the Lord's work and writing up the Hanks/Fonz beef from Turner & Hooch so we didn't have to: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/tom-hanks-henry-winkler-feud

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One Hand Clapping: Paul McCartney and Wings Oct 01, 2024

Show notes

Filmed in 1974 and now remastered (not that you'd notice) for a cinema release, One Hand Clapping is the latest thing to come out of Paul McCartney's ongoing project to clear out his shed. It's good though! In this bonus episode we talk about how the idea behind its release might be as a sort of Get Back-lite, and whether that stands up, about the dynamic between Paul and the rest of the band, and about the "very special" bit at the end, which you won't see on the YouTube version, where Paul plays some acoustic songs in the Abbey Road back garden. Plus: Linda McCartney was very cool indeed.

The film is currently on limited release in UK cinemas. https://www.onehandclapping.film
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223840/
Our rant about cinemas agreeing a policy on start times shouldn't be read as shade thrown at Picturehouse cinemas, by the way: they are lovely cinemas and someone gave us a free poster.
Watch Paul on stage with comedian Deon Cole on 17 September 2024: https://youtu.be/TPTgmoW3VL8

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The Beatles Anthology: DVD special features (original version) Jun 17, 2024

Show notes

One more, then: here's a bonus episode covering the Beatles Anthology DVD extras. We note just how much this disc complements the Anthology series, to the extent that watching it without watching this feels incomplete. It made us rethink some of the assumptions we'd made about the Beatles' interpersonal relationships in the 1990s, in fact. We see in longer form the footage from the Threetles' day at George Harrison's Friar Park home on 23 June 1994, and observe the differences between their behaviour when being interviewed together versus apart. We talk about the making of the Free As a Bird video, and put forward a theory about the nurse selling poppies from a tray (if it turns out it's been on the internet for years, no need to tell us).

Thanks for listening to season five. We loved hanging out with you guys. See you again later this year.

The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
Watch the Free As a Bird video: https://youtu.be/ODIvONHPqpk
Watch the Real Love video: https://youtu.be/ax7krBKzmVI
George Martin's Alderney Sailing Club jumper will be from when he owned a house in Alderney, on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. He also lived on Montserrat, where he had his studio. Here's an article from January 2024 about Guernsey donating instruments to young people in Montserrat in his name: https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2024-01-15/children-of-beatles-producer-receive-guernsey-instrument-donation

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The Beatles Anthology: episodes 7 and 8 (original version) Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

Beatles: Endgame. We discuss how the documentary gives George Harrison and Ringo Starr the space to craft their own narratives around how they left and then returned to the band, and we go over how it treats the Beatles' breakup, to the extent that it does at all. We talk about All You Need is Love in the context of the Beatles as rabble-rousing religious icons, and about how Yoko Ono is shown mainly in the context of her being a disruptive force. Plus: how the Anthology fails to tell a coherent story around the White Album. Was it a disjointed series of solo performances or a unified and enjoyable creative experience? It's the bloody Beatles White Album, shut up!

The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
The Abbey Road songs on which John Lennon didn't perform are Her Majesty, Here Comes the Sun and Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

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The Beatles Anthology: episodes 5 and 6 (original version) Jun 03, 2024

Show notes

On we go from Shea Stadium to Sgt Pepper. We see how George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Neil Aspinall remember the incident in Manila differently to Paul McCartney, and we put forward the idea that these episodes contain the Beatles' two imperial phases. We ask why George in the 1990s is still annoyed with Paul for making himself LSD spokesman in 1967, and we look in detail at Paul's chipped tooth: did it change everything?

The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
Maybe this is Meryl Streep at Shea Stadium, maybe it isn't. Why not spend your valuable time arguing with strangers on the internet in an attempt to resolve the matter? https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18Y
Read more about the idea of a band's imperial phase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_phase
Of course, only an idiot would confidently claim George won Best Rock Video at the 1988 MTV Music Video Awards for Got My Mind Set On You, not least because that award didn't exist until 1989. He was nominated for both Best Male Video and Best Special Effects in a Video for that song but he won nothing, despite When We Was Fab also picking up several nominations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_George_Harrison#MTV_Music_Video_Awards
The producer at the A Day in the Life session who announced "I just can't believe it ... I give up", was Ron Richards, producer of the Hollies, according to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.
John Bishop is a Liverpudlian comedian and presenter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bishop We tried and failed to find a clip of the question he asked Paul that annoyed him at the Eight Days a Week premiere, but if you ever meet Paul, don't call the Beatles "an overnight success".