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.
I also have to say that Malcolm McDowell's narration is superb. One of the best performances of his career
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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. DVD-R playing on my den TV:
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?”.
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.
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.
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