The Beatles Films Podcast

To finish off our fourth season, thrill as our takes on why George Harrison is laughing when Ringo Starr starts playing Octopus's Garden differ slightly. Later we discuss how Let it Be's pacing is affected by showing the finalised songs in full. Would it defeat the purpose to have done this differently? Plus, is John Lennon's claim that the film was set up to make the other Beatles look like sidemen for Paul McCartney justified, given how Let it Be, The Long and Winding Road and Two Of Us are shot almost like music videos with Paul the focus? We talk about how forward-thinking Michael Lindsay-Hogg's approach was to filming the rooftop gig, and about how this was maybe underappreciated until Get Back revealed the extent of it, and about whether there's now any point releasing a remastered version: could audiences be blamed for receiving it like a shorter Get Back? (NOTE this episode was recorded and released about five months before the restored version came out.)

• This episode and part 1 are both based on our viewing of Let it Be in its original form, or close to it, ie a bootleg we found online. Since we recorded this it has of course now been restored and re-released on Disney+, and we've got a short bonus episode discussing the restored version later in this feed.

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.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mad Men's Matthew Weiner paid $250,000 to use the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows in season 5, episode 8, "Lady Lazarus". We talk about the licensing of Beatles music in film and TV, which is also referenced in the episode, where the agency is trying to find a song for a Hard Day's Night parody advert. This episode is in August 1966 and we discuss how the characters are feeling the paranoia of the sixties closing in on them. America is tense and chaotic: the Richard Speck murders in Chicago and the Texas University sniper shootings have just happened, just as the Beatles are flying in to protests because of John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" comments.

As for Don Draper, his young wife has left copywriting to become an actor, and she's bought him a copy of Revolver to play while she goes out to a class. Start with the last track, she says. Don sits in his chair, kicks off his shoes, and hears the sound of a generation about to leave him behind.

• Watch Mad Men: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/mad-men
• Don Draper listens to Tomorrow Never Knows: https://youtu.be/6OquASU1y5A
• The song Don can’t tell from the Beatles is September in the Rain by The Wedgwoods: https://youtu.be/IFCqKSrrMJQ
• And in fairness he's not far off: the Beatles did it in the Decca audition: https://youtu.be/EElKJao9cmA
• The University of Texas tower shootings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting
• The Richard Speck murders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Speck
• The book Pete Campbell reads, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Crying_of_Lot_49/Py5bngEACAAJ
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_New_York_Trilogy/VRfe-QG_ls4C
• Read Ed's 2012 review of Mad Men season 5: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/mad-men-season-five.php

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.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has Ron Howard's 2016 documentary effectively been superseded by other films since? Probably the first official Apple film to be released as part of the Beatles legacy project, it's very polished and pays a lot of respect to fan culture, in particular teenage girls. But nine years on, does it cover too much of the same ground as other films, like Beatles '64, to be significant?

• You can rent the film online in a few places: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week-the-touring-years or pick up the two-disc Blu-ray for the special features, which really complement the film as we discuss.
• The detail about Matt White's role in originating the idea for the film comes from this article by his friend David Royle, written after White passed away: https://documentarytelevision.com/case-study/in-memory-of-matt-white-david-royles-tribute-to-the-late-archivist-and-producer/
• Read Ed's review from 2016: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week--the-touring-years.php
• Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/0fFyZzqPDws
• The clip of teenage fans at Shea Stadium in 1965, one of whom may or may not be Meryl Streep: https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18Y

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.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
• Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
• X https://x.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We weren't big fans of this 2023 Apple TV+ documentary series: it's prurient and invasive, and in the parts where it suggests conspiracy theories but then does nothing to back them up, it's pretty irresponsible. We discuss the techniques it uses in the context of the contemporary true crime boom, and ask whether we'd have liked it more if we had no personal investment in John Lennon's murder. Could it have achieved more by doing what it briefly threatens to, and framed itself around how thinking around criminality and mental illness, and gun control in the United States, has moved on since 1980?

• Watch it on Apple TV+: https://tv.apple.com/gb/show/john-lennon-murder-without-a-trial
• RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy: https://youtu.be/7H8ZV7QrVZY
• Netflix film Amanda Knox: https://www.netflix.com/title/80081155
• News of the World journalist Paul McMullan defending phone hacking on BBC Newsnight in 2011: https://youtu.be/ZV9Sh_R3wB4
• The documentary Ed mentions is Active Shooter: America Under Fire: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/active-shooter-america-under-fire
• Kenneth Womack's John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life: https://kennethwomack.com/books/beatlesbooks/john-lennon-1980-the-last-days-in-the-life/
• John's surgeon Dr David Halloran in the BBC radio series "I Was": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tfsqb
• Paul McCartney was interviewed on the March for Our Lives on 24 March 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Our_Lives

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.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
• Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
• X https://x.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Merry Christmas! Here's a festive gift marking 40 years since Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace video, which recreates the 1914 Christmas Day truce on the Western Front of World War 1. How was this video turned around fast enough to be aired on the BBC six days after shooting? Has Paul got the acting bug after spending half of 1983 shooting Give My Regards to Broad Street? Does his decision to play both the English and the German soldier lend a sense of shared humanity and emphasise the futility of war? (Seriously, stay with us here.) And why hasn't the song endured as a peace anthem in the last 40 years, in the way that Give Peace a Chance has?

We used a clip of the charity record He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective in this episode, and so we've made a donation to The Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance. You can donate here if you'd like to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1qf2s20740

Thanks so much for listening in 2023. We've loved making these podcasts and we're very grateful for all the positive feedback we get. If you've enjoyed any of them, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a five-star rating in your podcast app. It helps people find us. See you again in 2024.

• Watch the Pipes of Peace video: https://youtu.be/B3q4Up5ugTc
• Paul McCartney and George Martin being interviewed at the AIR Studios mixing desk by Russell Harty, 14 December 1983: https://youtu.be/xabqb5Y6Mg0
• All Together Now by The Farm: https://youtu.be/iRgtzZ-mOQo
• He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective, featuring a guitar and a vocal line by Paul: https://youtu.be/Ye4cELYLzJM
• Paul McCartney performing Freedom: https://youtu.be/zFFLlpC9f9Q

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.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.