Inarguably one of the most important pop culture events of the latter part of the 20th century, and a signature moment in the history of rock and roll, was the Beatles’ initial visit to the United States in February of 1964, which has been poured over in countless ways from the journalistic to the dozens of documentaries hence. Ahem, I, too, am guilty.
Beginning with the airport landing and the band’s ensuing presser to the monumental Ed Sullivan Show appearance that shook the foundation of the Boomer generation and launched hundreds of music careers, it is an amazingly fun tale. So, whenever the number ‘four’ appears in a year, there must be a commemoration, and its 60th last year was no exception. Apple, the Beatles’ parent company and keeper of the lucrative and iconic flame’ released Beatles ’64, a new (?) take on a well-worn story eagerly anticipated by Fab Four fanatics the world over.
Beatles ’64 is the result of the combined efforts of legendary director Martin Scorsese in the role of producer and his longtime editor, David Tedeschi, directing. The two worked flawlessly together on such outstanding music docs as Living in the Material World, an extensive two-part film about the life and art of former Beatle George Harrison, as well as the brilliantly devised Bob Dylan portrait, No Direction Home, and the dynamic Rolling Stones concert film, Shine a Light. It appeared Beatles ’64 was to be a guaranteed win, but it is not.
The most egregiously missed opportunity for this project is the use of its core footage, culled from the original 16-mm black and white cinéma verité What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. by Albert and David Maysles, who along with several seminal late 20th century documentaries, broke the mold with their stirring Gimmie Shelter, which covered the Rolling Stones infamous 1969 tour of the States that ended in murder at Altamont Speedway – a crime captured on film. The Maysles brothers do a masterful job on What’s Happening! (later repackaged as The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit in the early nineties), letting the action flow without commentary. We roll along with the Beatles at JFK airport, in the Plaza Hotel, on the radio, in the back of limos and at photo shoots, dancing at a club, and on a train to Washington D.C., eventually performing a concert there.
While mining some of the scenes that make What’s Happening! so vibrant, (including 17 additional minutes of footage) it is interrupted in Beatles ’64 by questionably pertinent talking heads whose musings on the impact of the events are cute, but trite. Even the random interviews with living Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as archival footage of the late George Harrison and John Lennon, add very little overall. While we do get glimpses of the D.C. performance, which has been restored and indeed looks (and, most importantly, sounds) magnificent, it should be the focal point of the film, but merely fills out the space between commentaries. Seeing these old reels come to life makes viewers crave more, but are sadly left wanting.
The general reasons given for the meandering from the matter at hand – the Beatles in 1964 over three weeks whilst in America making rock and pop culture history – is that the project was rushed. While past and recent Beatles-related releases were given time and care, there was a push for this to be released within the year 2024 to mark the anniversary. If time was indeed of the essence, it stands to reason that instead of trying to tell the tale anew, it would have been better and more to the point to present the original material (What’s Happening!) with enhanced treatment and let it tell the story on its own.
This remains the final curiosity about Beatles ’64. The heretofore consistency of Apple’s curating of the Beatles as a brand and its concurrent mythos has been without peer. No other legacy act has had the care, production value, or honoring of its past releases – whether music, film, or its significant anniversaries – marked quite as well or as profoundly.
The previous box sets of seminal Beatles albums, remastered by the son of famed producer George Martin, Giles, at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, have been state-of-the-art throughout, which also include solo Beatles efforts. This pristine run culminated with the 2022 release of celebrated director Peter Jackson’s seven-hour epic, Get Back, which used his WingNut Studios AI technology (the same used for Beatles ’64 concert footage) to resurrect – and in many ways revise – the once dreary early 1969 filming of the Beatles coming apart at the seams whilst trying to write and record an entire album in what amounted to three weeks. Get Back was a triumph of material never-before-seen ushered into the 21st century. The source material was the storytelling. It never took us out of the timeline with mostly useless chatter from ancillary voices. Get Back was a revelation for fans and the plain curious. It succeeded in every way that Beatles ’64 does not.
Currently streaming on Disney+, where Get Back and a re-release of what the original, beautifully restored, and extremely underrated Let It Be film now reside, Beatles ’64 is worth the view, as it is not lengthy and some of the voices in it provide perspective, but ultimately, it’s what could have been that haunts it. That, considering the excellence that preceded it, renders its subpar ranking.
