Your thoughts on Magical Mystery Tour - The movie

Aaah, maybe we'd better be careful what we wish for.

I still haven't recovered from that fiasco Hard Day's Night release from last year yet.

 

Even though far from a masterpiece--heck, I could have done something just as good with my camcorder--I enjoy watching it from time to time. I think the key is to just take it for what it is.

Ditto to the notion that Eppy would have brought in the talent to make it a professional-grade offering on the scale of the Monkees' Head, which I thought was a much more successful attempt at the same thing.

I have the DVD, and it was always my understanding that the crappy video quality was due to the state of the master reels, so we would never see anything better. The MMT excerpts in Anthology look great, though.

I'd like to see the entire movie with that crisp picture quality throughout, maybe with some extra Bonzo Dog Band footage... hey, I can dream, can't I?

 

Okay, let's review:

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR:
Mud=Bad
Matrix=Good

Who's right? Who's Next? I don't know, but I like it..........

 

Ed, thanks! That matches my recollection of the VHS tape I saw ages ago. I knew that HDN and Help! Had restoration work done, but I din't recall anything ever being said about MMT.

 

Magical Mystery Tour is a nice batch of 1967 Beatles promo clips with a bunch of filler in between them, which fortunately with the DVD, is quite easy to skip over. I enjoy it on that level.

Oh, and it's got The Bonzo's, too!

 

Yeah. It's the Beatles, and 1/2 of it is nonsense.

But, it's still the Beatles, and the other 1/2 is brilliant, IMHO.

 

... and it is a great psychedelic document of the time, made by people immersed in that culture (ala Monkees Head). I particularly like the "surreal" moments like the "spaghetti" scene and Victor Spinetti babbling on and on...

 

Help! and AHDN are my two favorites, but MMT is okay. The music scenes are cool, but the DVD use improved colour and sound along with some outtakes. I agree with whatshisname, it's like a movie I would make with my friends with lots of inside jokes and some music here and there. Most people just wouldnt get it. Oh, and Mr. Moonlight is one of my favorite tracks from that CD, and I really am not that big of a fan of most of Paul's stuff. So there. Mistakes might have been made by The Beatles, but I havent seen any. Even Revolution 9 is ...well, revolutionary.

 

I think all of the MPI DVD's are now out of print, but I was still seeing them occasionally for sale here and there. Luckilly, I got them all around the time I got my first DVD player, when they were still easy to find.

Oddly though, the Magical Mystery Tour DVD seems a bit washed out color-wise, when compared to the videotape MPI released a few years earlier. Definitely not as good as the same footage when used for Anthology.

It's the authorized version from Apple, restored in the late 80's, so the picture and sound are clear, especially if all you ever had was the old horrible Media Home Video tape. However, they sure could have done the DVD better, and if and when it gets reissued, they probably will.

 

"Revolution 9" is an act of self-indulgent madness....yet it works for me only by the sheer repetition of playing that album from first cut to last for so many years. It still catches my attention if I'm in attentive; you never know what little snippet will catch your ear the next time. Not of METAL MACHINE MUSIC calibre, but what is?

The DVD's 'improved sound,' Rob, is just dubbing in the stereo versions of the songs, nothing more. The color remains a washed out mess, when the reds don't saturate things, and the darker sequences turn into a kind of fuzzy murk. it's a total visual mess, and only the songs redeem this one. If original negs can't be found for this one, it'll take major restoration work to make the picture look even presentable...which, on the MPI DVD, it just ain't. The wear and tear are horribly evident, not the case on most(but not all)of the ANTHOLOGY passages featuring MMT.

Sckott nailed it: 1/2 brilliant, 1/2 nonsense. And to enjoy the nonsense, something has to be done with the visuals. ANTHOLOGY shows improvements can certainly be made.

ED