The Compleat Beatles

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Clark V Kauffman, Dec 5, 2021.

  1. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    you picked right! this is where it belongs...
     
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  2. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    Someone might disagree but it sounds like George is saying that they offered Please Please Me when he wanted to release How Do You Do You.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2022
  3. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I also have to say that Malcolm McDowell's narration is superb. One of the best performances of his career
     
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  4. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    [​IMG]

    My laser disc is still in it's shrink
     
  5. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    AFAIK my tape still works. I put Forrest Gump in the player a couple of months ago and it wasn't turning. There's a couple more VCRs around but I haven't tried them
     
  6. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    These are the people who were in the Beatles orbit. Allen Williams, Bob Wooler, Bill Harry, Tony Sheridan, Horst Fasher, Billy J. Kramer, Gerry Marsden, George Martin and so on. If I'm not mistaken the only talking head is Nicholas Schaffner, the author of the excellent Beatles Forever.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2022
  7. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    I'm not hooked up with VHS any longer...but from what I remember my tape is fine.
     
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  8. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Yes, that is the story that George Martin told for years: that How Do You Do It was recorded for the band's second single, but that they persuaded him to release Please Please Me instead. I'm pretty sure it was only in the early 90s (when Lewisohn's recording sessions book came out) that it became common knowledge that How Do You Do It was actually recorded at the September 4th session, which meant it was in contention with Love Me Do as the first single, rather than with PPM as the second.
     
  9. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I just checked the Hunter Davies book, and it turns out George Martin was misremembering the chronology regarding How Do You Do It as early as 1967:

    George Martin, meanwhile, was pleased but not overexcited by "Love Me Do." "I didn't think it was all that brilliant, but I was very thrilled by the reaction to the Beatles and their sound. The problem now was to get a follow-up record for them." He found a song he was sure was going to be a hit called "How Do You Do It." He sent it to the Beatles who didn't like it. George Martin said he did. He was the boss. He wanted them to record it. So they had to. They did, but still said they didn't like it and didn't want it produced. It was a brave, or perhaps simply naive, show of stubbornness for a group of young, inexperienced provincials who couldn't even read or write music to tell the highly knowledgeable and powerful George Martin that they knew better than he did.

    "I told them they were turning down a hit. It was their funeral, but if they were going to be so obstinate, then they had better produce something better themselves. They were very self-opinionated in those days. They haven't changed one bit. They did produce something better, 'Please Please Me,' which knocked me out."

    Martin repeats this story in his 1979 All You Need Is Ears. And both Nicholas Schaffner and Phil Norman also tell the same story in their books, which were two of the better-known Beatles bios of that era.
     
  10. tedkul

    tedkul Forum Resident

    Also Lenny Kaye.
     
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  11. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

  12. MekkaGodzilla

    MekkaGodzilla Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westerville, Ohio
    Does anyone have any idea of a release date? I know it wasn't released theatrically in the United States, but I remember seeing it on home video (VHS) around Thanksgiving 1982. Some sources cite PBS airings as well.

    I still have my CED copy, but the playback is a bit acky-dacky!

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    Right, they really start popping up with Sgt Pepper. You got to love Wilfred Mellers.
     
  14. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I recorded my first copy off of PBS. The 30th Anniversary Pepper followed it. The VHS copy I have now was given to me by a friend a few years back.
     
  15. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    They gave the VHS about 3 years of sales before it was on TV here.
     
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  16. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    It amazes how this and the Rutles have the same general layout.
     
  17. AngusStanley

    AngusStanley Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts
    Isn’t Mia Farrow in it as well?
     
  18. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    I still have the 1994 remastered LaserDisc of THE COMPLEAT BEATLES. We were out in the Chicago suburbs in the 90s and on "Black Friday" stopped into the Tower Records on Golf Road in Schaumberg. At that time, DVD was still a little ways off, and I was still big into LaserDiscs. This LaserDisc has a "NEW REMASTERED EDITION" banner across the top. It made for a really decent DVD-R.

    [​IMG]

    DVD-R playing on my den TV:
    [​IMG]
     
  19. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    My favorite quote from him in the film is when he says that The Beatles arrived just in time to “save” America…then he pauses…and says in that cynically sarcastic way of his..”but from WHAT?”.
     
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  20. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    You forget anything that comes out of Malcom McDowell's mouth sounds cynical and sarcastic. :D
     
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  21. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    This film should absolutely receive restoration and I think it would be a very good seller; it’s perfect for the younger fan who wants to start off with the essential “basics” and my guess is that there is a very good number of older fans, myself included, that would love a great looking, remastered version.
     
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  22. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    Yea, true.
     
  23. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    Whomever chose the commentors did an excellent job. I was wondering for years WTF Milt Okun (John Denver's producer) was included until I remembered that he was the one that edited the Complete Beatles sheet music books. I read on these pages that the whole thing started as a promotional film for that set of books.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2022
  24. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    As a commentator? No. She's on film clips from India though,
     
  25. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I like how during the beginning exposition he says 'A trucker from Mississippi named Elvis Aron Presley, then ..... nothing else about Elvis until he join's the army
     

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