The Beatles Films Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Beatles Anthology: episodes 3 and 4 (original version) May 27, 2024

Show notes

Into episodes 3 and 4, the bulk of the Beatlemania and touring years, and we get straight to the key issue: why has Paul McCartney suggested he be interviewed while steering a tugboat? We also get into how the Anthology handles John's habit of making fun of disability: why is it addressed, given there was probably no real pressure on them to do so in the nineties, and how would it be received if included in a rereleased Anthology today?

Plus: Jimmie Nicol and another example of Ringo Starr's emotional intelligence, as his memory of being temporarily replaced mainly involves taking a 24-hour flight to Australia on his own and how that made him feel.

There's a bit more too on the group dynamics of the Threetles meeting at Friar Park, and we ask whether George Harrison would've been as snarky in his interviews if John Lennon had been alive and participating in the documentary.

The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
The Big Train sketch in which George Martin can't stop doing Beatles anecdotes: https://youtu.be/yIA_NVFnXZ8
The episode of BBC Radio 4's Front Row in which Samira Ahmed uncovers the previously unheard recording of the Beatles performing at Stowe School on 4 April 1963: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kpq1

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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The Beatles Anthology: episodes 1 and 2 (original version) May 20, 2024

Show notes

In the first of our four episodes covering the 1995 documentary series, we start with some of our own memories of when it aired, when we were teenagers and Britpop had made The Beatles cool again in the UK. We note the vast structural difference between episode 1, which of course covers the bit of their career of which there's the least amount of video footage, and episode 2, which focuses much less on talking head recollections and more on live and TV appearances, often shown nearly in full.

We also discuss the practical impact of the three Beatles still alive at the time, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, being interviewed mainly separately, and how much each of them is enjoying the experience. Paul is in full anecdote mode, but is George enjoying himself more than he expected to?

Plus: how are Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best treated in this, and why? What are the implications of only including a limited core of contributors? And a bit of digging into the idea that they got their name from the Marlon Brando film The Wild One.

The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
Watch a TV advert for the Anthology DVD release: https://youtu.be/hlHX8FPqsDM
The tweet from Joe Wisbey of the Beatles Books Podcast, linking to the short doc that aired before the Free as a Bird video premiere on ITV. Thanks Joe! https://x.com/BooksBeatles/status/1631351804335120391
Beatles Bible diary entry for 30 October 1963, when the Beatles performed on the Swedish TV show Drop In: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/10/30/television-drop-in-stockholm-sweden

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Let it Be (2024 restoration) May 10, 2024

Show notes

A quick bonus episode to discuss Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film, restored by Peter Jackson's team and released on Disney+ on 8 May 2024.

We discussed the original film at length in our two-part episode at the end of season four, and you can find that in this podcast feed. But we were lucky enough to get an advance viewing of the restored Let it Be, so we wanted to have a quick chat about the significance of this re-release. In particular we try and answer the question: Why do we need this when we have Get Back? We also talk about Jackson and Lindsay-Hogg's introduction, and how it suggests this has been ready to go for over a year, and about the visual and audio distinctions between this restoration and Get Back.

So give it a listen and then scroll back through this feed and check out the original Let it Be two-part episode.

Read Dan Rivkin's excellent post about the Let it Be restoration on his blog, They May Be Parted: https://theymaybeparted.com/2024/05/07/tmbp-extra-then-and-now/

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The Concert for Bangladesh May 06, 2024

Show notes

George Harrison of the Beatles and Ravi Shankar organised two concerts on 1 August 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, as relief for refugees from East Pakistan after the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide. The gigs featured Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and Badfinger. We talk here about both the concert film released to cinemas in 1972, and the 2005 documentary on the DVD, The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends.

We discuss how this set a template for the benefit concert as we know it today, and talk about the white saviour complex and how acknowledging the culture of Bangladesh through Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan's performance arguably sets the concert apart. We also talk about the performances; and the challenges of, and comically rookie errors made while, filming it. And! Is Clapton's lacklustre performance down to choosing a hollow-bodied guitar, or the fact he was boxed on methadone?

We use clips of the film and concert in this episode, so we've made a donation to the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF, and you can do the same here if you'd like: https://www.unicefusa.org/about-unicef-usa/partnerships/foundations/george-harrison-fund
The concert on George's official site, with links to buy the DVD: https://www.georgeharrison.com/films/the-concert-for-bangladesh
John Lennon's benefit gig for Willowbrook State School was released as Live in New York City: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cgunr
The Greatest Night in Pop is the Netflix documentary about the recording of We Are The World: https://www.netflix.com/title/81720500
The documentary we were thinking of is not called “Clapton” or “Slow Hand” but 2017’s Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars: https://g.co/kgs/hAKZ9Tk
After recording we confirmed that, uncharacteristically, Ed was right: Setlist.fm shows that If I Needed Someone is the only song written by George ever performed live by The Beatles. https://www.setlist.fm/stats/the-beatles-23d6a88b.html

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Scot Williams interview: playing Pete Best in Backbeat, and directing Two Of Us, a play Apr 29, 2024

Show notes

Scot Williams is best known to Beatles fans for playing Pete Best in Backbeat, and In His Life: The John Lennon Story. Scot's been a successful actor, director and writer for 30 years, and having grown up in Liverpool the Beatles have always been a big part of his life, and have featured in lots of his projects.

Scot is about to direct a play, Two Of Us, adapting Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 2000 film about John Lennon and Paul McCartney's final meeting. We covered it in our first episode, which we were delighted to hear Scot listened to, and which informed his interpretation of the script.

As well as Two Of Us, we talk about how he came to be in Backbeat, Stephen Dorff and the dynamic of British actors alongside Hollywood stars, and his friendship with Pete Best. We also get his take on the upcoming Sam Mendes Beatles films.

Note: through our own fault we had some problems recording Scot's voice, so we've cleaned it up with an AI tool (yes, just like John's voice on Now and Then). If the odd word sounds a bit funny, that's why!

Two Of Us runs at the Watford Palace Theatre 13–21 September 2024. Tickets: https://watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk/events/two-of-us/
Then at HOME Manchester from 26–28 September. https://homemcr.org/production/two-of-us
Hear our episodes on Two Of Us and Backbeat in this podcast feed.
Watch Two Of Us: https://youtu.be/nOGgmsDbx-U
Scot's IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931656/
Barry Sloane will play John in Two Of Us: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1289351/
Richard Short will play Paul: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2095375/
Scot's Beatles/Shakespeare musical A Bard Day's Night, cowritten with Backbeat co-star Chris O'Neill: https://abarddaysnight.com/
The Conversations with McCartney audiobook where Scot read Paul's bits: https://open.spotify.com/show/61RgyFASIKjzbP6OrgZOlI

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

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Ringo (1978 TV movie) Apr 22, 2024

Show notes

Let's look at Ringo Starr's 1978 TV comedy film, written by Neal Israel and Pat Proft, both of whom would go on to make significant contributions to film comedy through the Police Academy and Naked Gun films, and loosely designed to promote his recent album Bad Boy.

We discuss where Ringo is in his career and how his performance (he plays two versions of himself in a take on Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper) made Hollywood reappraise him and led to his leading role in Caveman (also covered in a previous episode). We talk about why so many stars like Art Carney, John Ritter and an immediately-post-Star-Wars Carrie Fisher are keen to get involved.

And we discuss George Harrison’s performance, and why it’s a good job Ringo doesn’t seem to play You’re Sixteen live anymore.

Watch the film: https://youtu.be/LditHJXu4LU
The Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet is James Mangold's A Complete Unknown, currently in production: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/
Watch 1977's The Prince and The Pauper, starring Oliver Reed: https://youtu.be/CNx2-e-OcIU
Watch 1983's Trading Places, with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/trading-places
Setlist.fm stats which seem to show that Ringo wisely hasn't played You're Sixteen live since September 2019: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/ringo-starr-and-his-all-starr-band-63c6b20b.html

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

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How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin Apr 15, 2024

Show notes

Leslie Woodhead's 2009 film for BBC Four wasn't his first entry into Beatledom: he also shot the Cavern Club footage in 1962 that we're all so familiar with. He's also spent time making films in Russia, so he's ideally placed for this look at Russian youth's relationship with The Beatles, during the Soviet era and into the early, less scary, Putin era. We look at Russian then-Deputy PM Sergei Ivanov's contribution to this film. He seems fun! Maybe less so these days. We also discuss the practice of smuggling contraband Beatle recordings about by etching them into X-ray acetates, and Paul McCartney's meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2003.

You can watch the film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUO1atyECD8
Chuck Norris vs Communism doesn't look like it's on any streamers at the moment, but its details are here: https://g.co/kgs/uoaNUFT
Nick Broomfield's film Kurt & Courtney: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hfrtn
Pete Paphides' excellent book, Broken Greek: https://g.co/kgs/3XqWL4K
Elton John's autobiography, Me: https://g.co/kgs/3XqWL4K

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

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The Family Way Apr 08, 2024

Show notes

Paul McCartney's first solo project, other than judging beauty contests, was the score for The Family Way, a 1966 comedy-drama in which a northern English community have an invasive interest in the non-consummation of Hywel Bennett and Hayley Mills' marriage. Is Paul really the chief composer of the score for which he won the Ivor Novello award, or did George Martin do more than "supervise and arrange" it?

There's a lot going on in The Family Way in terms of changing attitudes in the sixties, and of course the Beatles were at the forefront of this. Intellectualism, sexual freedom and men being allowed to be sensitive and artistic. We look at how the film handles these things. Plus! A bonus (if you like that sort of thing) Kula Shaker connection!

You can watch The Family Way in good quality on Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8csmfp
And listen to the soundtrack album on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4opUUCL6CG5SLSEysBytap
Some more information about the Carry On film franchise, if you don't mind a wiki in your face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_(franchise)
There are full episodes of Hywel Bennett's long-running sitcom Shelley on YouTube. You might recognise the title theme if you like the Top Flight Time Machine podcast: https://youtu.be/BMduOLx6vTo
The book Ed mentions is Steve Turner's excellent Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year: https://g.co/kgs/n29WPBa

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I Wanna Hold Your Hand Apr 01, 2024

Show notes

We both loved Robert Zemeckis's 1978 debut feature, the story of a group of New Jersey teens trying to get into the Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show performance in February 1964. We talk about the techniques Zemeckis and his writing partner Bob Gale use here and how a lot of it prefigures their later work, in particular the Back to the Future trilogy. We also discuss how using the Beatles as characters who are always just off camera or somehow out of reach plays into how America saw them at the time: almost as mythical figures or religious icons. And we get into how the female characters find self-expression through the freedom their fandom gives them, and how that mirrors the Beatles' sociological impact where teenage girls were concerned.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand isn't on a streaming service, but pick up the Blu-ray, which is cheap and a great restoration with an interesting commentary track from Zemeckis and Gale.
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/QEPDFYuhkDI
We also mention some other films in this episode, like Detroit Rock City, a similar story revolving around a Kiss Concert: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/detroit-rock-city
And American Graffiti, George Lucas's 1973 coming-of-age film: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/american-graffiti
And Dazed and Confused, again about the last day of high school: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/dazed-and-confused

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

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Imagine: John Lennon (1988) Mar 25, 2024

Show notes

The 1988 documentary commissioned by Yoko Ono might have been the jumping-off point for the Lennon legacy project we know today. It shows John at his best, for the most part, and there's not much dissent from the talking heads, including May Pang, Julian Lennon and Cynthia Lennon. We ask why John chose George Harrison to play on How Do You Sleep?, his Paul McCartney diss track, when he could've got a session player. We discuss how John and Yoko's bed-in confrontation with the cartoonist Al Capp prefigures a lot of contemporary online discourse. And why wasn't Paul familiar with Real Love when Yoko gave him the demo cassettes, given he'd seen it used in this?