Another year, another really good Beatles documentary—this time chronicling their first foray into that little thing we call the United States.
Beatles ’64, on Disney+, covers well-worn territory, but this Martin Scorsese-produced documentary pulls some rare footage from that particular road trip shot by documentarians Albert and David Maysles. Combined with archival interviews, more-recent interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and post-Beatles interviews with John Lennon and George Harrison, there’s something here for even the most ardent fans.
While the music from the beginning of their catalog isn’t my favorite, it’s always fun to see them when they were just starting out and happy as hell. This is before the crazy tours that led them to rule out live shows, and before Lennon got into the hard stuff. Heck, this might be the last time George Harrison cracked a smile on a regular basis. By ’66, he was scowling a lot.
Director David Tedeschi gives us about 17 minutes of never-seen-before footage, and the old stuff has been reborn through—yep, you guessed it—the same technology Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films has been using on the recent wave of Beatles nostalgia films and videos. The black-and-white footage looks like it was shot yesterday. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen George Harrison’s teeth in such great detail. Again, he was smiling a lot in those days.
John Lennon is wisecracking; Ringo Starr looks gob-smacked; George Harrison is all snarky and chipper; and Paul McCartney is just being Paul. (I mean, the guy has always been the same as far as mannerisms go, through all the decades, and I love him for that.)
I will never grow tired of this sort of thing. Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Paul and Ringo: Please keep scouring the archives for stuff we haven’t seen yet; polish it up; and put it out there to be consumed.
Beatles ’64 is now streaming on Disney+.