INTERESTING DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT THE BEATLES

There are numerous documentaries about the Beatles that it is almost impossible to list them all; especially since 2013, at least two documentary films have been produced each year. I made a playlist of the few surviving documentaries on YouTube (which I am constantly updating), it starts with the first main Beatles documentary "The Long and Winding Road", a documentary co-produced by ex-roadie and Apple Corps executive Neil Aspinall and Apple Films Limited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uV_086oXZA&list=PLlqXiBY2sa0QT89mzZGuUbDReMLhhA7E8.

Of course, there are a few must-watch Beatles documentaries that should be seen before watching any other documentary about the band; those films are: the "Anthology" from 1995/96 and John Lennon's "Imagine" from 1988.

I would suggest at least one Sgt.Pepper's documentary from the many that have been produced (you can find three of my favourite Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club documentary posted in this blog: http://sgtpepperchannel.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-best-sgtpeppers-documentaries.html) and the recent “Eight Days A Week”, directed by Ron Howard .(https://my.mail.ru/mail/kazbekov_1957/video/_myvideo/2060.html).

However, I'm here to share a couple of documentary that can't be found on YouTube ... or anywhere online (at least not easy to find, especially when the uploaders title them differently from the original/official name).

Beatles on Records 

The first is a documentary made entirely using audio interviews and music from the Beatles and George Martin called Beatles on Records produced by History Channel in 2009.
This documentary is also available on YouTube under the name Beatles in the studio and has Spanish subtitles.

Note: there is a little mistake at minute 3'25" when it comes to date the publishing of Please Please Me: 
PPM was released in March 1963, not January as this documentary says ....  

All You Need Is Cash 

Another pretty interesting documentary is “All You Need Is Cash” - Not to be confused with the Rutles film !

This is a Channel 4 (UK) documentary from 2007 about The Beatles' finances, tax & business deals from the early days to the present. Features interviews with Phillip Norman, George Martin, NEMS Director Geoffrey Ellis, documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, Geoff Wonfor, Lew Grade, May Pang and Beatles author Allan Kozinn. http://bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=ycdvd067

These is the poster of Beatles on records (2009), All You Need Is Cash (2007) and Parting Ways (2010)

 

Parting Ways

"Parting Ways" is a 52 minutes documentary about the life of the Beatles after their split in 1970. Going in the order of John, Paul, George and Ringo, each of the Beatles is given a little over 10 minutes of air time in this film that seems to take a lot of liberties and uses a lot of stock film footage that was also used in Strange Fruit.

https://beatles-freak.com/2015/11/12/movie-review-the-beatles-parting-ways/

All Together Now

A less interesting but not notorious documentary is "All Together Now": a 2008 documentary on the creation and behind the scenes of the Cirque du Soleil stage production of "LOVE" and partnership between the remaining Beatles and families.

These are the posters for All Together Now and Cirque du Soleil.

Magical Mystery Tour documentaries

In August 2012, a deluxe edition of the Magical Mystery Tour was released in the US. Among the extras there was a 19 minutes documentary produced by BBC simply called “The making of the Magical Mystery Tour”. 

And another 2012 BBC production for the Magical Mystery Tour documentary is called Magical Mystery Tour Revisited (BBC Arena Special). This documentary is available to watch in the BBC website for UK residents but no one else, so, to make it visible to everybody, I uploaded on my archive channel.

And yet there is another interesting Magical Mystery Tour documentary called Magical Mystery Memories. Directed by Dave Lambert. With Tony Barrow, Tony Bramwell, Spencer Davis.
http://beatleshelp.net/beatles/mmtm.html

All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music

The last one for now will be a TV special from 1975: All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music, featuring: Twist and Shout", The Cavern Club, The Beatles in Hamburg, The Beatles' 1965 US tour, Bobby soxers, Skiffle, Mersey Beat, Summer of Love, Jane Fonda's birthday party, "House of the Rising Sun", Apple Boutique, Monterey Pop Festival, "All You Need Is Love", "Eight Miles High", "More popular than Jesus", Brian Epstein's death.
Interviewees: Paul McCartney, Allan Williams, Brian Epstein, George Martin, John Lennon, Murray the K, Derek Taylor, Roger McGuinn, Mike Love, The Beach Boys, Carl Wilson, Donovan, Bill Graham (promoter), The Animals, Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, The Mamas & the Papas, Tommy Charles, WACI, Robert Shelton (Ku Klux Klan)
Scriptwriter: Derek Taylor
Directed by Tony Palmer
Original air date: May, 14 1977
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Need_Is_Love:_The_Story_of_Popular_Music



Follow The Beatles 

Going back to 1964, following the release of the film A Hard day's Night, a short documentary of the making of the film/behind the scenes, containing footage filmed on location and during a recording session at Abbey Road studios on February 1964, was released under the name Follow The Beatles and was presented by Robert Robinson. MORE INFO



Rare and Unseen
The next Beatles Documentary is a bit outdated now, but, when it first came out it was a fantastic documentary, not only for its distinctive graphics, but for the great rare content. 
https://my.mail.ru/mail/billy.shears/video/_myvideo/171.html
© 2007 Formative Development  Narrator : John Badila

If you have some more time to spare (of course you have!) check out The Beatles Diary from this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqXiBY2sa0QT89mzZGuUbDReMLhhA7E8

This blog page will be update from time to time with new embedded videos, so, make sure to visit it once in while.

Our World (TV special) 1967

Our World was the first live television production, which was broadcast worldwide on 25 June 1967 via satellite.
During the program events from around the world were shown, perhaps the Beatles sequence is the most popular of this TV show. Among the guests, singing the chorus during the performance, were members of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon and Graham Nash.
The Beatles were live at 8:54 GMT (that's amazing! How did they get John out of bed so early?!)
... and a special hand-clap for the Australians that got up at 4.50 AM ! ☺
More details can be found on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_World_(TV_special)
and here : https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/other_stations/cooby_creek/our_world.html
... I'm more interested in showing the actual film, which speaks for itself.



Colour TVs weren't as common as today back in the 60s, so the program was broadcasted in black and white, however, in 1995, a colourised version was created for TV special The Beatles Anthology, using colour photographs taken at the scene as reference.



Some of the outtakes / base-track records can be found in the bootlegs "Magical Mystery Tour (Back to the basics)" available to download for free here: http://octaner.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/magical-mystery-tour-back-to-basics.html