Unseen and Unheard
By a customer
from UK
, 24 Dec 2008
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
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This is a TimeWatch documentary from the BBC. It illustrates an age before minders and before the big, professionally organised pop tours. Here was a time when the Beatles' US tour schedule was written down on the back of an envelope. The documentary reveals how the Beatles tired of the relentless touring and started to grow apart as both friends and musicians. There are present-day interviews from the likes of the support band and roadies and then there are interviews with the Beatles from the sixties. It covers mostly the US tours up to 1966 and but also mentions Australia, the death threat in Japan, inadvertently snubbing the president's wife in the Philippines, and Lennon's run-in with the Christian community during their third and last American tour. All of which would go towards convincing the Beatles that touring was no longer for them. I found the stories of the cheap and amateurish elements of the organisation of the US tours to be the most interesting part.
The 'unseen' aspect appears to refer to a home movie taken by a young boy at the Beatles' final concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco. I found it only mildly interesting so I was quite disappointed. The narrative maintains that these times saw 'the birth of popular youth culture' which appears to ignore everything that happened in the 1950s. But, as you'd expect from the BBC, the editing and research are fine.But the disappointment for me was the missing element - the music of the Beatles. There is no sound from any of the concerts (perhaps because of the technical difficulties) but there is not even any of their recorded material as a soundtrack (maybe a problem with obtaining the rights?) This tends to remove the flavour from the documentary. So the 'unseen' is hardly significant and the 'unheard' makes it a little disappointing.
The running time is given as 100 minutes but the documentary itself is only 49. The bonus material consists of: 'The Beatles in Jersey', a silent cine film which is not quite 3 minutes and most of which was utilised in the documentary (and again, perhaps 'unseen' but hardly earth-shattering); a photo gallery of 39 photos and finally 44 minutes of extended interviews. None of the interviews, I thought, particularly added anything and the essential quotes were in the main documentary. The exception was an interesting interview with Andi Lothian, co-promoter of the first disastrous, and then the second highly successful, Scottish tour. Others appearing are Allan Williams, manager before Brian Epstein; Tony Barrow, Beatles' Press Officer; Larry Kane, journalist and promoter; Tony Bramwell, road manager and Maureen Cleave, journalist.
All in all, not as entertaining or as insightful as I had hoped. If I'd watched this on (free) TV I would have thought it just about OK but for a rental DVD that requires my cash, it doesn't come up to scratch.
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By Bam (1 review) from Bury St. Edmunds , 19 Nov 2007Showed some interesting footage but would have been better if it had also included more of the Fab 4 performing songs.
