When Beatlemania first swept the United States in 1964, a moment pinpointed in time by the band’s first-ever televised performance on The Ed Sullivan Show that February, only four people knew exactly what it was like to be at the center of such a revolutionary cultural frenzy: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Now, almost exactly 60 years later, American fans are getting the rare chance to see behind the curtain of The Beatles’ unprecedented rise to fame, all thanks to McCartney documenting the period with his personal Pentax film camera more than half a century ago.

Upon being recovered from the living legend’s archives, more than 250 of his photographs were put on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London last year – and now, they’ve made their way to the Brooklyn Museum in New York City.

Source: Jenny Regan and Hannah Dailey/yahoo.com

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“I was always moaning about the original film, because there was no real joy in it,” Ringo Starr recalls to The Daily Beast of the 1970 documentary film Let It Be, which was released just weeks after news of the Beatles’ split had hit the press.

Since Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary premiered on Disney+ in 2021, even the most casual Beatles fan knows what Starr is talking about. The Let It Be film and album were a dismal affair for all involved. Salvaged from the ashes of Paul McCartney’s idea for the Beatles to “get back,” literally, to their roots by writing and recording a new album, the nearly 60 hours of footage filmed by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg during January 1969 chronicled the end of the greatest creative collaboration of the last century.

But Let It Be got only a limited theatrical release in 1970. Now, at long last, a restored version arrives on Disney+ this week.

“All these years, did I wish it to come out? Of course. Did I hope it would? Well, you know, hope is a like a candle: sometimes it flickers and sometimes it’s bright and sometimes it goes out,” Lindsay-Hogg admits. Dressed nattily and holding forth in a Disney conference room in midtown Manhattan, the 84-year-old director looked preternaturally youthful when we recently met to discuss Let It Be, which has been wonderfully restored by Jackson’s team after he used Lindsay-Hogg’s footage for Get Back. “The catalyst, really, was Peter Jackson. Right from the beginning, he was very direct and very respectful.”

Of course, back in 1969 and ’70, things didn’t go according to plan, either. John Lennon was preoccupied with his then-blossoming relationship with Yoko Ono (and dabbling in heroin), and George Harrison had finally had enough, having just returned from a visit with Bob Dylan and the Band in Woodstock, where he had been treated with the respect he no doubt felt he deserved. Even Starr, frustrated by the ever-increasing tensions among the band members, had struck out in films and began contemplating a solo career in earnest.

Source: Jeff Slate/thedailybeast.com

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When Peter Jackson’s documentary series The Beatles: Get Back premiered on Disney+ in 2021, fans finally had definitive proof that—despite that prevailing narrative that followed the release of the 1970 documentary Let It Be—Yoko Ono did not split up the Beatles. After all, among the eight hours of footage of the Beatles recording their second-to-last album, there was a candid interview with Paul McCartney where he said it was fine with him, actually, that John Lennon’s girlfriend was hanging around the studio. He thought it was sweet.

But now the original Let It Be documentary is streaming on Disney+, and, for the first time since a low-quality VHS release in the ’80s, fans are able to watch a restored version of the documentary fans saw in theaters in 1970. And guess what? There’s absolutely no evidence that Yoko Ono had a single thing to do with the Beatles break-up in this movie, either! Instead, there is ample evidence that the blame lies entirely on McCartney and George Harrison.

Source: Anna Menta/decider.com

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The most surprising thing about the reissue of Let It Be is that it commences with footage shot not in 1969 but last year: an interview between Peter Jackson and the film’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg. If nothing else, this suggests that Lindsay-Hogg is a good sport, given that Jackson’s eight-hour 2021 docuseries The Beatles: Get Back substantially retold the version of events depicted in Lindsay-Hogg’s film about the Beatles’ 1969 recording sessions at Twickenham Studios and in the basement of their Apple HQ.

Furthermore, Get Back made Lindsay-Hogg himself look like a bit of a ninny, ceaselessly cajoling the Beatles to perform a filmed live performance in an amphitheatre in Tripoli – “Torchlit! In front of 2,000 Arabs!” – undaunted by various Beatles telling him to stick his idea, and indeed the Beatles apparently splitting up in front of him: his reaction to George Harrison quitting the band midway through filming was to recommence badgering a shattered and tearful-looking Paul McCartney about the amphitheatre gig. No wonder Jackson introduces him with the line: “I guess people might be asking themselves why you might be here talking to me.”

Source: Alexis Petridis/theguardian.com

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In 1970, it looked like a portrait of the Beatles breaking up. Now it looks like the first rock 'n' roll reality show — and a vision of them coming together.

I first saw “Let It Be” when I was a kid, in the summer of 1970, just weeks after it was released. My family was coming off one of those “Vacation” road trips. During the miles of driving, we listened to Top 40 radio, which meant that several times a day I got to hear “The Long and Winding Road,” which I thought was the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. (To this day, I adore the Phil Spector heavenly-choir orchestral-layer-cake version and have never understood Paul McCartney’s aversion to it.) I knew that the first thing I was going to do when we got back was go to see “Let It Be” — and, in fact, it was the first Beatles thing I was old enough to connect to as it was happening.

The Beatles, in their early years, looked alike (same hair and suits, same lemon-shaped smiles), and even after they’d entered the psychedelic zone with “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” they dressed and coiffed themselves with a splashy coordinated harmony. They were unified. And that made a kind of supreme sense, since they were the larger-than-life pop avatars of love. They sang about love and made a mantra of it; love was the centrifugal force that held their music together. But “Let It Be,” starting with that plaintive shrug of a title (which seemed to be telling a planet’s worth of fans that the dream was over), had a very different vibe.

Source: Owen Gleiberman/variety.com

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Paul McCartney is opening up about fatherhood. In a recently shared blog on the Beatles icon's website, the father of five, 80, opened up about how his role as a dad has changed now that his children are adults.

"As far as being a dad is concerned, I've always just tried to give my kids a bit of guidance if they seem to need it - but that was mainly when they were younger," he wrote. "Now that they are older, they're guiding me!"

"They don't need so much guidance these days but if there's ever a problem, I'm very happy to be the guy they come to," McCartney continued. "So, that's largely the thing of being a dad. You're just there to help, and I suppose have fun with - we do have a lot of fun. Now they're older, we can have a drink together, for instance!"

McCartney shares daughter Beatrice, 19, with ex Heather Mills, son James, 45, and daughters Stella, 51, Mary, 53, with late wife Linda, as well as daughter Heather, 60, Linda's child from a previous relationship.

In addition to being a father of five, the legendary musician is also "Grandude" to eight grandchildren — Stella's four children, ages 12 to 17, and Mary's four children, ages 11 to 23 — who he told PEOPLE he calls "chillers." He's also written two picture books, Hey Grandude! and Grandude's Green Submarine.

Source: Angela Andaloro/ca.movies.yahoo.com

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