John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial

02/17/25 • 63 min

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.

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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

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.

Previous Episode

Sextette

Ringo Starr's film career includes the odd misstep, of course, but this 1978 vehicle for Mae West is often cited among the worst films ever made. And fair enough, it's not great. But Ringo is the best thing in it: we talk about how he brings his whole self to the role, further evidence of how committed he was to making acting his primary career at this point in his life. And there are other Beatles connections: Dom DeLuise sings the Lennon/McCartney song Honey Pie in the film, and of course there's the small matter of the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Watch the film: https://youtu.be/_d7y_ai5oy8
The YouTube supercut of Mae West's best lines we mention: https://youtu.be/FJS670okmZc
If you like one-star reviews, here are the two of Ed's we mention in the episode: What To Expect When You're Expecting: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting.php
And Maniac: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/maniac.php
The bottle episode of Friends we mention is season 3, episode 2, The One Where No One's Ready, which you can watch on Netflix or just close your eyes and recite the entire thing in your head because it's all in there somewhere.

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

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.

Next Episode

Yesterday (1985 Polish film)

We look at Radoslaw Piwowarski's Beatles-themed film, which won the Golden Shell at the 1985 San Sebastián International Film Festival. It's the story of teenagers in 1964 communist Poland trying to forge an identity through their love of the Beatles. We talk about cinema behind the Iron Curtain (the Polish People's Republic was under communist rule both in the story and when the film was released) and what that means for freedom of expression, both for the filmmakers and the characters. Is the Beatles' music, which we hear in the film, treated with a special reverence given how it was contraband to the characters? And as the boys are forced to have haircuts we talk about the cultural significance of the Beatles' hair and what that meant in a regime where signifiers of rebellion were more dangerous than in the West.

Watch the film on YouTube with English subtitles: https://youtu.be/ymPnya34a4g
The poster with the four shaved heads we mention is the one we've used for this episode's image (albeit with our logo photoshopped in)
Bruce Channel's Hey Baby from 1959, which briefly popularised the harmonica, a craze which helped with the Beatles' early popularity: https://youtu.be/ik9dxkKriV0
Some more information on El Cóndor Pasa, the folk song popularised by Simon & Garfunkel but which has versions in lots of countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_C%C3%B3ndor_Pasa_(song)