The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years - Special Edition [DVD]

In the Summer of 1964 I was 13 years old. “A Hard Day’s Night” was playing at our local cinema in Granada Hills, California, a suburb of L.A. where I lived. Every Saturday in July and a part of August too that summer I rode my bicycle to the movie theatre to attend both matinees, 25 cents each for kids. I saw the movie more than a dozen times and memorized the lines so well I could mimic a Scouser accent. George’s was the most difficult but I loved the challenge of it. I loved George. Everybody did. If I had been a girl I would have tried to get him to marry me (like millions of girls tried or wanted to despite their parents saying no and threatening to ground them). By mid-August I was broke, totally out of cash, my allowance spent on the Beatles, Junior Mints and popcorn. My dad wouldn’t advance me more money, so I started mowing lawns in the neighbourhood and asking neighbours if their cars needed washing, a request which met with disdain or amusement. I scraped together another dollar and went three or four more times. I didn’t mind hearing young girls in the theatre screaming at the movie screen and singing as the Beatles sang. I sang too. It was the most exciting thing that had ever come to our town. The Beatles were the strangest, most exotic, beautiful and magical people I had ever laid eyes and ears on. I couldn’t believe it. They came out of nowhere. For the longest time the world had been as it always had: school, homework, baseball, etc. But then it changed, basically overnight. Now with Beatles in the world it could never be the same again. Growing up all I ever heard from the adults was how great America is and how lucky I was to be in it and of it. Looking around that sounded like malarky to me and besides I wondered how many Americans had ever been to Patagonia, Transylvania, Borneo and other out-of-the-way places by way of comparison. Very few, I reckoned. The Beatles confirmed it: I didn’t know anyone who had ever been to Liverpool or even to England. But I would go. I knew for sure that summer I eventually would. I knew it must be great. The Beatles come from there, so of course it has to be. They even call it Great Britain. It was like I finally understood something for myself for the first time. The Beatles made me love England. They turned me into an Anglophile long before I knew what the word meant. “All my loving,” they said to me. I knew it was meant for me because I heard it. They wanted me to come to England, so I did and it was great, truly great. I lived in London, not Liverpool, and was never disappointed and didn’t get homesick. For the first time in my life I felt part of the world, not just a small part of America. It was liberating. I was living in the land that made “A Hard Day’s Night”. The Beatles arrived at a really good time too in America. Somebody had stupidly shot our President dead the previous year. True story. If America was so great, why do that? My theory was simple but right in my childish mind. They were jealous. JFK was handsome and had a beautiful wife. He was young and intelligent and spoke with a cool accent (from Boston). If he’d been British he would have come from Liverpool, I reckoned, because many Irish come from there, including John Lennon’s family. Boston and Liverpool were better than Granada Hills, my hometown. The Beatles made me feel like a hick. The Beatles also came to cheer us up. They were funny, witty, fresh, charming. They were also cheeky and irreverent but I didn’t know words like that back then. You couldn’t take your eyes off them when they were speaking and they always had something comical to say. Brian Epstein, their manager, booked them to play on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York. So that’s where they arrived first in America — in New York. In their first press conference at the airport an American reporter asked them if they would get haircuts while in America. They shook their heads like they do on stage, but this time without squealing. Then George said into the mic, “I had one yesterday”. Everybody cracked up. That was who they were, the spirit of the Beatles alive and well at their very first press conference. Another word I didn’t know back then when I was 13 was ‘unpretentious’. They were that too. I knew the word ‘fresh’ and knew they were that, but ‘unpretentious’ is more nuanced. Two days after the Ed Sullivan Show another American reporter asked Paul directly: “What place do you think this story of the Beatles is going to have in the history of Western culture?” Paul: “You must be kidding with that question. Culture? It’s not culture.” Reporter: “What is it?” Paul: “It’s a laugh.” I loved Paul for that, and still love him for many other reasons. The following year, 1965, after the Beatles had truly conquered America the British establishment finally woke up to the news. Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, was always trying to weasel his way into the limelight for attention. The Beatles, to their credit, had never heard of him, or claimed not to know who he was. But Harold got the swell idea to nominate the lads for MBEs, an award usually reserved for military men. He could then hog the cameras with the lads and bask in their reflected glory. So that’s what he did, congratulating himself and the Queen for going along with the plan. After the awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace a reporter asked the lads: “Have any of you any ambitions left at all?” Silence, but one soon broken by Ringo: “I’d like to be a duke.” They laughed. I did too. But I wonder if the reporter did. I love Ringo. He couldn’t write songs but he kept the backbeat going and was the best actor among them, his little vignette along the riverbank in “A Hard Day’s Night” a classic of its kind. Then of course “The Magic Christian” with Peter Sellers, a hero of Ringo’s (and of all the other Beatles) from the Goon Show days with Spike Milligan. But John was the cleverest wit of all. Was he a poet? If not, a punster, a lover of wordplay, the Lewis Carroll of the Beatles. Who else could be the Walrus or see Lucy in the sky with diamonds but him? Paul wrote “Penny Lane” which is upbeat, fun. But John wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever”, which does indeed have a feeling of immortality about it. I’ll always love John. He may have had anger issues and demons from his Liverpool days, but what he wrote and sang and did were great gifts to the world. If not, why is the music still so fresh? “Abbey Road”, which just turned 50, sounds like it was made last week. Many step up to the plate to testify to Beatle greatness in this documentary. Elvis Costello, a fellow musician, does. Whoopi Goldberg, who saw the lads perform at Shea Stadium in 1965, does too. So does Sigourney Weaver, who screamed herself hoarse as a teenager at The Hollywood Bowl when the Beatles played there. Scores of others as well. They tell us what the Beatles meant and mean to them. I doubt a better documentary on the Beatles can be made, as this one does something no other film has previously done. It takes us into their small, intimate, claustrophobic world. From the outside we see all the glory and glamour. But alone in hotel rooms together with handlers (agents, roadies, management, et al.) we see the gilded cage they live in, their isolation and loneliness, or a sort of loneliness or homesickness. For what? For kippers, chips, pints and tea in the afternoon; for girls that are called birds; for jokes that are understood; for Old Blighty itself. We forget how young they were, barely into their twenties, and how small the world they came from was, and how quick and astonishing their success was not only for us but especially them. They were warriors, road warriors for sure. They held up. They survived. Of course they argued, sometimes passionately. But it never came to blows and Paul tells us why. It’s because the Beatles weren’t John Lennon and the Beatles or Paul McCartney and the Beatles. They were just the Beatles, all four of them, a great fraternity where equality ruled. It always took four votes to do anything and their democracy worked much better than those in many countries do. They had each other. Hank Williams only had himself. Elvis too. Those artists were on their own. The Beatles never were until much later, until the Sixties were gone. Things changed with the death of Brian Epstein in the Summer of 1967. Brian, the fifth Beatle, held everything together. “Sgt. Pepper’s” was made when Brian was still living. But after that L.P. things began to unravel. Less discipline, more infighting. The film doesn’t go much beyond 1967, but we know what will happen. The White Album was not a collective so much; more like a desultory collection of individual contributions. “Abbey Road” has more coherence but it’s a road that will dead end soon after “Let it Be” is released, the true end of the line. Apple Corps, Yoko, intense conflict will come later. The film is fresh, just like its subject. But it doesn’t suggest a time of innocence. We know about the background in America and elsewhere, including Britain. The racism of America is not glossed over, nor the violence there (assassinations, the Vietnam War, the atrocious behaviour of the government toward Muhammad Ali). But the focus is on the music, the men who made it and the effect it had on millions — an effect so tender and intimate that the memories of individuals merge with the memories of an entire generation of people all over the world. The Beatles changed millions of lives, including my own. So much so that I can barely conceive of the life I would have had without them. On that note a new film by Danny Boyle is due out soon. The title: “Yesterday”. The theme and premise: a world (the Sixties) in which the Beatles are not present, never existed. Try to imagine that. But maybe now I don’t have to. I just have to watch the film to see how empty the world is without the Fab Four in it. Fab indeed. They were fabulous. If you don’t believe me, watch this wonderful documentary for confirmation of it.

Excellent product, smooth transaction and good postage. A +++++. Recommended.

I've been a Beatles fan all my life and I thought I'd seen it all, but there was some footage I'd never seen before. Well put together; it was a great enjoyment.

I ordered this Special Edition from the UK rather than from the US under the impression there was extensive Shea Stadium footage similar to that shown when the movie was released to theaters. Well there isn't, there are just a few brief clips. I also note the run time of the main feature is 115 minutes, not the 130+ minutes described on the Amazon UK page. Was there more Shea Stadium on the disk originally? I'm not sure. Maybe someone else knows the answer to this. Other than that, it is very good but 4 stars and not 5 due to the Shea Stadium omission.

When you think about how much footage there is of The Beatles together and as individuals, you realise the success of a film like this is to do with the choices made by director Ron Howard, what's included, what's missed out, then how it's edited to tell a story and make a point. The four were good musicians, but together they were brilliant and groundbreaking. You see their hard work, their perseverance and tolerance of a force over which they had no control - huge audiences in stadiums meant for sport. How such gigs have progressed since they pioneered them! One of the things I didn't know about was the brutal reaction to a comment made by John Lennon about their influence over youth culture that was misinterpreted and led to mass burnings of their records. Watching four talented and determined lads becoming public property was my experience of this excellent documentary, and of course I loved hearing their songs again, many in live performance.

The documentary its self is incredible. Ron Howard is one of my all time favourite directors and of cause the Beatles are one of my favourite bands. It is amazing to see two things I love come together like this and it makes for a lot of fun. The packaging itself though is truly incredible. Anyone who is thinking of getting this I say get the special edition box as you get such a nice design and a beautiful book with it. If you would like to see more there is a video on YouTube by rockboy680 where you can see him go through this beautiful blu Rays packaging. This is one of the nicest looking blu Rays I have ever received and is one of the most fun documentaries I have seen on it so I highly recommend.

I haven't watched it as it's a Prezzie. Hard to think of my Mum as one of the hysterical Beatles fans? I'm sure in the day she didn't have enough money to go and see them? As for me I think the Beatles with their funny hair and accents sucked.... Ah well I'm sure she'll enjoy a blast from the past..

I originlly saw it on a flight and was taken by the quality of the sound. The concert footage, lost behind the screams, comes alive. Congratulations to Giles Martin and his team for rescuing these historical recordings for the few of us that saw The Beatles and future generations whose music has been influenced by this wonderful band. Superbly put together from many sources of varying quality. A wonderful view of a touring band during the sixties. No huge team of "roadies", just Mal & Neil. No light show. No sound "system", just puny Vox AC30s trying to punch through the screams and the house PA. For me this is an unmissable film.

Molto bello come ricordo di un'epoca. Molto ben fatto. consigliabile per gli appassionati che capiscono l'inglese

I was there. This documentary is not only entertaining and fun to watch but historically accurate! Nice job!

Euphorisant !

this magnificent deluxe version contains 5 whole songs performed and never seen on disc two; much more than Peter Jackson's loooogn 8 hours of not much, except for the roof top concert. The early years by actor/director Ron Howard is a must for real Beatles fans!

Très agréablement surpris de recevoir cette magnifique édition Bénélux avec sous-titres français (film + bonus) 2 BluRay + Livre dans un beau digipack.