The Beatles Films Podcast

• The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (part 2)

  We finish off this season with a look at the film's use of footage that's been colourised from black and white. Was this done, as Iain Lee suggested to Ed on his Talk Radio show in 2016, because American audiences don't like black and white? We think there's a bit of mileage in that: more specifically that the brief here was to present this footage to a new audience with a bit of sheen. We also discuss talking heads in the film like Eddie Izzard, and look at what they contributed, as well as some who appear only in the Blu-ray extras, like Paul Greengrass. Here's the full audio of the eight-minute call Ed made to Iain Lee's radio show after they'd both seen Eight Days a Week in the same screening, August 2016: https://youtu.be/dOggLQlN8GUThe film we mention coming to IMAX briefly in April 2025 is One to One: John and Yoko: https://www.imax.com/en/gb/movie/one-to-one-john-and-yokoMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  51:16
• The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (part 1)

  Has Ron Howard's 2016 documentary effectively been superseded by other films since? Probably the first official Apple film to be released as part of the Beatles legacy project, it's very polished and pays a lot of respect to fan culture, in particular teenage girls. But nine years on, does it cover too much of the same ground as other films, like Beatles '64, to be significant?You can rent the film online in a few places: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week-the-touring-years or pick up the two-disc Blu-ray for the special features, which really complement the film as we discuss.The detail about Matt White's role in originating the idea for the film comes from this article by his friend David Royle, written after White passed away: https://documentarytelevision.com/case-study/in-memory-of-matt-white-david-royles-tribute-to-the-late-archivist-and-producer/Read Ed's review from 2016: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week--the-touring-years.phpWatch the trailer: https://youtu.be/0fFyZzqPDwsThe clip of teenage fans at Shea Stadium in 1965, one of whom may or may not be Meryl Streep: https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18YMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  50:35
• Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord

  The coming together of two great British cultural institutions feels fated, but how well did Russell T. Davies pull it off? We look, of course, at how accurate they've been when it comes to Beatle detail, and in particular at the characterisations of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Matt, a Whovian, explains how this episode fits into the canon and how this season of Doctor Who compared tonally to others, while Ed, who thinks he might have seen a couple of the Christopher Eccleston ones 20 years ago, mainly just listens.Watch the episode on BBC iPlayer if you're in the UK and have a licence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001z8c7/doctor-who-season-1-2-the-devils-chordOr on Disney Plus if not: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/doctor-who/1ml73V6phgyZSome clips of the a non-Eccleston Doctor playing a Beatle (identities revealed in the episode): https://youtu.be/cOzmhlgwM4EHear the Beatles-related Doctor Who audio story, Fanfare for the Common Men, on the "Into the TARDIS" podcast: https://shows.acast.com/into-the-tardis/episodes/doctor-who-1963-fanfare-for-the-common-men-part-1Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1:05:23
• Yesterday (1985 Polish film)

  We look at Radoslaw Piwowarski's Beatles-themed film, which won the Golden Shell at the 1985 San Sebastián International Film Festival. It's the story of teenagers in 1964 communist Poland trying to forge an identity through their love of the Beatles. We talk about cinema behind the Iron Curtain (the Polish People's Republic was under communist rule both in the story and when the film was released) and what that means for freedom of expression, both for the filmmakers and the characters. Is the Beatles' music, which we hear in the film, treated with a special reverence given how it was contraband to the characters? And as the boys are forced to have haircuts we talk about the cultural significance of the Beatles' hair and what that meant in a regime where signifiers of rebellion were more dangerous than in the West.Watch the film on YouTube with English subtitles: https://youtu.be/ymPnya34a4gThe poster with the four shaved heads we mention is the one we've used for this episode's image (albeit with our logo photoshopped in)Bruce Channel's Hey Baby from 1959, which briefly popularised the harmonica, a craze which helped with the Beatles' early popularity: https://youtu.be/ik9dxkKriV0Some more information on El Cóndor Pasa, the folk song popularised by Simon & Garfunkel but which has versions in lots of countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_C%C3%B3ndor_Pasa_(song)Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  49:50
• John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial

  We weren't big fans of this 2023 Apple TV+ documentary series: it's prurient and invasive, and in the parts where it suggests conspiracy theories but then does nothing to back them up, it's pretty irresponsible. We discuss the techniques it uses in the context of the contemporary true crime boom, and ask whether we'd have liked it more if we had no personal investment in John Lennon's murder. Could it have achieved more by doing what it briefly threatens to, and framed itself around how thinking around criminality and mental illness, and gun control in the United States, has moved on since 1980?Watch it on Apple TV+: https://tv.apple.com/gb/show/john-lennon-murder-without-a-trialRFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy: https://youtu.be/7H8ZV7QrVZYNetflix film Amanda Knox: https://www.netflix.com/title/80081155News of the World journalist Paul McMullan defending phone hacking on BBC Newsnight in 2011: https://youtu.be/ZV9Sh_R3wB4The documentary Ed mentions is Active Shooter: America Under Fire: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/active-shooter-america-under-fireKenneth Womack's John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life: https://kennethwomack.com/books/beatlesbooks/john-lennon-1980-the-last-days-in-the-life/John's surgeon Dr David Halloran in the BBC radio series "I Was": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tfsqbPaul McCartney was interviewed on the March for Our Lives on 24 March 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Our_LivesMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1:03:40

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