From: brennan@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles
Subject: Re: Beatles video list
Date: 5 Jan 93 19:38:11 GMT
Reply-To: brennan@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1i23qjINN4a9@menudo.uh.edu> edc@evolution.bchs.uh.edu
(edward s. chen) writes:
>                  A summary of the Beatles on video

This was excellent!  Thanks for the hard work!

>A Hard Day's Night

It's too bad the soundtrack was remixed to stereo, because it contained
mono mixes different from the CDs now available.  Was it that important
to get stereo music in a mono film?  

My tape of this starts with the song "I'll cry instead" and a montage of
photos.  I don't know what this is, since it doesn't appear to be a trailer.
I wish it started out with the opening chord of "A hard day's night"!

>Magical Mystery Tour
>it (albeit, somewhat edited) from television. (The Disney Channel in the USA)

What did the Disney people edit?  I have seen a broadcast TV version,
some years ago, that was edited down to probably 45 minutes of film,
but with all the songs in at least.

>Yellow Submarine
>the only thing that would make this tape better is if a letterbox edition
>were made available.

It -was- wide screen, wasn't it?  I think Disney's features have always
been the old ratio, which is like the TV ratio.  Think of all the extra
drawing and painting for wide screen!

>Let It Be
>the original tape is somewhat muddy, and the sound is mono

Much of the sound was recorded only in mono by the filmmakers, but
you're right, at least the rooftop session and the "Let it be"/"Long
and winding"/"Two of us" studio session was recorded in stereo.

>The Compleat Beatles

I was annoyed at not getting the clips complete.  It's been a while
since I viewed this, but I recall all the "videos" (film of course!)
were cut short or talked over.  Maybe this is the difference between
compleat and complete :-).  My recollection, perhaps wrong, was that
the makers of this item had exclusives on the clips for a certain time
and therefore no one could put out a true "video album" of them-- but
maybe I was misunderstanding the ATV rights dispute.  I agree about
the deceptive use of pictures not corresponding to spoken comments;
it's not unique to this documentary but it's a practice to be
criticized anyway.  It shows you how much video presentations require
a picture for each thought, even if there doesn't happen to be one.

>The Rutles -- Worth mentioning as the film is supposedly very strongly based
>on the unreleased in-house (Apple) Beatles documentary.

I don't know about that, but parts of it are based on a British TV
documentary series called "All you need is love", which covered the
development of pop music generally but had a whole episode on the
Beatles.  I think the reporter walking along, filmed from a moving
truck (see Eric Idle near the beginning), is an example, but it's been
a long time since I saw AYNIL.  The name of the Rutles film is really
"All you need is cash", also a takeoff on the series.

The Rutles film is increasingly funny, the more you know about the
Beatles.  There's too much to catch in one viewing, it's so dense with
parody detail.  I thank whoever it was (saki?) for pointing out that
the reporter played by George Harrison is a lookalike for the Liverpool
reporter who is also named George Harrison!

>Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (several tapes)

Ringo sings in one of the stories, the one about the race with Harold
the Helicopter.  It's just two short verses, a capella, but still I'm
surprised it hasn't turned up on a Ringo bootleg! --or has it?

Ringo by the way turns out to be a first-rate narrator.  His gentle
delivery is just right for these stories of engines that act like
children.  It's not stop-action photography, but it does use toy-size
models like stop-action.  Instead the trains really move, and so do a
few of the props, while the wooden people stand still in position--
so it's much like a model railway.



>Probably first on my wish list is a compilation of the promo films taken from
>the masters.

Why in the world was that not the first video release??? (well maybe
after the films).  I agree one hundred percent.  

>Revolution:      Two versions.  Basic performance clip.   The Beatles
>                 actually recorded a new version of the song for this clip.
>                 (once again, the difference between the two versions is
>                 in shots and camera angles)

The vocals are new, but the instrumental work is the same as the record
(Lewisohn supports this).  Note the electric piano heard but not seen
and the third guitar part in the solo...


--Joe Brennan