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| Apple Films Ltd. |
In August 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles made a film.
It was seen in the U.K. by a huge audience, at 8.35 p.m. on
BBC 1 on Britain’s Boxing Day…and all hell broke loose.
Magical Mystery Tour Revisited, the story behind the controversial and surreal film Magical Mystery
Tour features new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr
(pictured left). All is revealed on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances, Dec. 14 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).
Magical Mystery Tour was chock-full of thinly veiled
references to psychedelia, anarchy and fantasy, all in the setting of a
traditional British sightseeing bus outing to the seaside. This was a
far cry from the innocent loveable mop-top japery of Help! and A Hard Day’s Night.
Middle Britain had tuned in but was a long way from turning on and
dropping out – the nation was baffled and outraged by the film’s
unexpected and uncompromising surreal, non-linear narrative. Paul
McCartney appeared on The Frost Programme on rival ITV the day after transmission. He was called upon to account for himself and the rest of the group.
Could it be that a pearl was cast before swine and then thrown away?
To its small band of admirers, it was a masterpiece of surreal British
wit and imagination in the tradition of The Goons and Alice in Wonderland.
Now with the film fully restored to the highest technical standard
with a remixed soundtrack, it’s time to tell the extraordinary story of Magical Mystery Tour:
why it was made, how it was made and the circumstances in which it was
made.
In the summer of 1967, The Beatles had the world at their feet.
It’s impossible to overestimate the effect of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band;
that was revolutionary too but everyone loved it. In August, Brian
Epstein tragically died, leaving the Beatles not only without a manager,
but without their ambassador. They decided to go ahead with the film
they’d been planning.
To tell the story, this film calls on those who were there, most notably Paul McCartney, who had the original idea, and Ringo Starr, who is credited as the director of photography. John Lennon and George Harrison
(pictured below) are represented through interviews over the years and through their
appearances in the film itself and in the copious and fascinating
outtakes.
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| Apple Films Ltd. |
Line producer Gavrik Losey and cameraman Michael Seresin evoke the
heady atmosphere of the shoot, along with Jeni Crowley and Sylvia
Nightingale who, as teenagers, reported from the coach for The Beatles’
Fan Club magazine.
Paul Fox, then controller of BBC 1, recalls making
the deal with The Beatles for the film. Also sharing their reminiscences
are Peter Fonda, Paul Gambaccini, Terry Gilliam, Neil Innes, Paul Merton, Barry Miles, Annie Nightingale and Martin Scorsese.
Finally, this is a chance for the film’s admirers to have their say;
its detractors have been given plenty of opportunities to have theirs.
It provides a chance to evoke 1967 as it was – post-war Britain as much
as the summer of love, when a new set of artists with The Beatles at the
helm came up with an alchemy that turned the ordinary and the
commonplace into the magical and mysterious.
