1+ - part three

By 1967 and 1968, making a promotional film or video for each new single release had become almost second nature to the Beatles - so much so, in fact, that even after the death of their manager Brian Epstein, they automatically carried on the trend without his guidance.  And the quality did not lag, either.  There is something unique about each of these visual gems, matching the variety in the music that they accompany.  

Penny Lane - Swedish director Peter Goldmann was recommended to the Beatles by old Hamburg friend Klaus Voormann, and Epstein hired him to direct promotional films for both sides of the new double A-sided single in early 1967.  The world got its first glimpse of the group's new look in these 35mm color films, with each of them sporting a moustache and John keeping his round-rimmed glasses from his appearance in Richard Lester's How I Won the War.  Though the song is a McCartney composition, John is featured the most walking around London's East End.  This is intercut with real footage of Liverpool that Goldmann's crew shot on another day.  The boys mount horses and ride them both in the East End and in Knole Park in Sevenoaks, Kent (as with their skiing in the film Help!, none of them had any previous experience horse-riding).  They ride past risers on which Ringo's drumkit with its distinctive Beatles logo sits, eventually dismounting at a round table set with candlesticks and glasses, where some uniformed footmen - assistant Mal Evans among them - bring them their guitars before they overturn the table.  At no point do they actually pretend to sing or play the song.

All You Need Is Love - There was no need to produce a video for this song, as it was broadcast live to every corner of the globe on the first-ever worldwide satellite program Our World on July 25th, 1967.  It was colorized for the Anthology series in the 1990's, and that version is included in this collection.  With a group of famous friends gathered around them (pictured above), the Beatles perform along with a small orchestra and a playback of the basic track of Lennon's anthem.  One camera in the control booth shows the tape machine capturing the moment as producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick mix it live for the simultaneous video transmission.  

Hello Goodbye - Since the group had just finished directing themselves for their television production Magical Mystery Tour, McCartney figured he could handle the chore of directing the promotional films for the next single, as well.  The Saville Theatre, still leased by Epstein's NEMS enterprises, was used to shoot three versions of the group miming to the song.  This first one begins with the curtain rising to show the band in their Sgt. Pepper outfits.  Lennon does not wear his glasses, which works well in a few quick throwback shots of the boys in their matching collarless 1963 suits waving to the camera.  Ringo sits sometimes at a very small and sometimes at a very large drumkit.  And several young ladies in grass skirts join the Beatles onstage for the Maori finale.

Lady Madonna - Quickly arranging a promotional film shoot for a song recorded only a few days earlier, the group reported to EMI's Abbey Road Studios on February 11th, 1968.  Instead of simply pretending to be shown recording McCartney's number, they actually recorded Lennon's Hey Bulldog.  This explains why John is seen sitting at the piano more than Paul, and why the two of them share one microphone when Paul is clearly heard singing lead alone on Lady Madonna.  At the end, Paul is seen stepping away from a piano at Chappell Studios with Cilla Black on a different date.

Hey Jude - The Beatles reunited with Michael Lindsey-Hogg for their next promotional videos.  On a soundstage at Twickenham Film Studios, backed by an orchestra and surrounded by 300 random people and a group of Apple Scruffs, the band mimed to their latest hit, though Paul did sing into a live microphone.  His vocal gymnastics are therefore different during the extended coda, especially when he throws in a few lines from the Band's song The Weight.  At the top, David Frost introduced the band after they did an impromptu version of his television theme song.  They then launched into a ghastly It's Now or Never as he looked on stone-faced.  While this was edited out of the tape before it was distributed worldwide, we get to watch this strangely delicious moment of anarchy on this collection.

1+ - part two

Richard Lester, director of both A Hard Day's Night and Help!, has been retroactively credited as being the father of MTV, based on his creative staging for the songs written by the Beatles for those films.  Band manager Brian Epstein certainly recognized the power of those images, with the running, jumping and standing still version of Can't Buy Me Love serving as the prime example.  He also realized that the punishing schedule which the boys had somehow managed to survive for almost three full years could not be maintained.  Yet each new single still had to be promoted worldwide to achieve maximum success.  A new way of doing business needed to be devised.

To that end, a day was set aside on November 25th, 1965, for an ingenious project.  Promotional videos would be shot on various sets at Twickenham Film Studios for distribution to television outlets around the world.  The latest release, the double A-sided single Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out, was the most important, of course, but the previous three singles would get their own videos, as well.   All in all, ten videos were shot on this date, with eight of them appearing on this collection.  I have already covered one version of I Feel Fine in my last entry.

Ticket to Ride - Lester's sequence for this song in Help!, featuring the Beatles skiing in Austria, rivals that for Can't Buy Me Love in the first movie for sheer inventiveness.  Rather than getting permission from United Artists to use that clip, this simple video version was shot instead, showing the boys wearing winter coats before a backdrop of huge tickets as pictured above.  Ringo goofs around playing the lopsided drum pattern from the record.  And John has forgotten where his extraneous "yeahs," "ohs" and "ahs" were, shooting a look at Paul and laughing every time he gets them wrong.

Help! - For this video, the boys sit astride a plank between two sawhorses, with John in front.  The others poke their heads from side to side to be seen, bouncing up and down during each refrain.  Ringo sits at the back holding an umbrella, which he puts to good use when a heavy fake snow begins to fall near the end of the song, definitely to the surprise of George.

Yesterday - We take a break from the promotional videos for this clip from the Ed Sullivan Show.  George introduces this song, not yet known to American audiences, as the others step aside and Paul takes up an acoustic guitar.  The lights come down low to isolate him as he sings along to three live violinists and a backing track.  The screaming fans soon realize they need to quiet down and just listen to this brilliant number.

Day Tripper - Back to Twickenham for the first of three versions of this great rocker.  John and Paul share one of three risers in front of the type of simple backdrop used on many TV shows of the era.  Except for Ringo swinging his elbows whenever he is not playing, they play this one straight for a change.  A tinsel curtain closes near the camera at the end of the number.

We Can Work It Out - Three videos were also shot for this song, with this first one using the same set as Day Tripper.  John sits at a harmonium on one of the risers, and he cannot resist mugging for the camera early on, as Paul sings the verse aware that John is up to something.  George becomes bored and sits on the front of Ringo's drum riser during the second bridge.  The notes that John plays on the keyboard at the end of the number are surely not those heard on the record.

Paperback Writer - Michael Lindsey-Hogg directed the color promotional film for this spring 1966 single.  He shoots the band in the lush garden of Chiswick House, with each member sporting tinted sunglasses at times.  While the others have guitars to occasionally mime playing the song, Ringo sits by without even a pair of drumsticks in his hands.  

Yellow Submarine - Neither film nor video was shot at the time for the double A-sided single that featured songs from the August 1966 album Revolver.  For this collection, footage from the 1968 animated film was assembled, most of it featuring scenes from the submarine's journey to Pepperland.  There is one shot of the Sgt. Pepper drumhead and a Blue Meanie at the moment that the brass band is heard in the song.

Eleanor Rigby - Like Can't Buy Me Love and Ticket to Ride in the earlier films, Eleanor Rigby is the brilliant standalone sequence in the Yellow Submarine film, and there was simply no better way to represent this song visually for this collection than to include that original sequence.  The animators combined black and white photographs of people and places (mostly brick) with splashes of color to create a bleak and lonely urban landscape mirroring the lives of the characters in McCartney's lyrics.  Even the submarine does not really brighten up this world as it wanders through it.  A stunning piece, then and now. 

1+ - part one

For the first time, I will be taking a look not at a musical collection by the Beatles, but rather at an outstanding collection of videos based on their greatest hits package simply known as 1, which was a worldwide smash when it was released in the year 2000.  Fifteen years later, a deluxe Blu-ray set was made available, featuring videos or films of each of the twenty-seven number one songs appearing on the original.  Twenty-three additional films and videos brought the total up to an impressive fifty.  A CD with remastered versions of all twenty-seven number one hits was included, as well.  And all of this was housed in a hard cover booklet with photos and entries detailing the sources of the visual material.  

For the selections tied in with the original CD, I will group each entry as I did for that collection.

Love Me Do - The Beatles were filmed in August of 1963 performing without an audience for a BBC television program entitled The Mersey Sound.  The first recorded version of the song from September 4th, 1962 with Ringo on drums was played with the footage seen here.  Also, interspersed with the performance clip, are shots including manager Brian Epstein in his NEMS record shop, the boys reading fan letters and putting on make-up in a dressing room, riding on the Mersey ferry in Liverpool, and some actual fans at a concert.

From Me to You - This clip from the famous Royal Variety Command Performance shows the curtain opening with the band already playing.  The ITV broadcast then briefly puts the group name on the screen for the home viewers not yet familiar with them in November of 1963.  Only after the number is concluded are John and Paul seen moving their microphones forward of the curtain line in preparation for the introduction of their next song.

She Loves You - The Beatles appeared on the Swedish television program Drop In (pictured above) at the end of their weeklong visit to that country in October of 1963 - their first foreign tour.  The fans sitting at the band's feet are amused when Paul and George shake their heads while singing the falsetto "woo."  And, at the end of the number, we see the boys step back to do their patented unison bow - a classy, old-fashioned move that Epstein added to their act.

I Want to Hold Your Hand - For the Granada TV program Late Scene Extra, the group is clearly miming to their latest single in November of '63.  There are no microphones to be seen, and John and George are strumming acoustic guitars.  The set features a giant camera and mock-ups of the Daily Echo newspaper.

Can't Buy Me Love - During the final week of principal photography for A Hard Day's Night, the group actually began rehearsals for a television special entitled Around the Beatles.  Talk about a grueling schedule!  They also had a session to record the numbers that they would be doing on the program.  This clip shows them miming to the new recording of this hit single.  Oddly, the camera focuses more on John than Paul, even though John does not sing on the original.  Some extra screaming was added to that from the audience all "around the Beatles" before the actual broadcast.

A Hard Day's Night - In June of 1965, the boys made a triumphant return to Paris, playing for much more enthusiastic crowds than those that had attended their January '64 shows.  This footage from one of the '65 concerts was featured on a television special called Les Beatles.  Aside from the usual shots of frantic girls in the audience, we see some young boys happily clapping along, as well as one teenage boy ecstatically dancing alone.

I Feel Fine - This is the first of several promotional films made at Twickenham Film Studios in November of 1965 for distribution worldwide (more about them in my next entry).  Some gym equipment sits on the empty studio floor as the distinctive feedback at the top of the song is heard.  John, Paul and George enter wearing their guitars and pretend to play and sing along with the record, George singing into a standing punching bag in place of a microphone.  Ringo eventually runs in and hops onto an exercise bicycle which he pedals sporadically.

Eight Days A Week - The first color film in this collection was assembled expressly for it using footage from the historic Shea Stadium concert in 1965.  The Beatles fly over the stadium in a helicopter looking down on the massive crowd, a cop covers his ears as they run out onto the field, girls scream, pass out, are chased down by security, the boys cavort on stage, and Brian Epstein proudly stands off to the side taking it all in.  They did not perform this song, by the way.  In fact, they never played it live.