This is a really great discussion. My first time seeing the "Let It Be" film was when I was 17, in the fall of 1980. A theater that specialized in showing classic/older films had a triple-feature Let It Be, Help! and Yellow Submarine. Some high school friends and I went to see this one evening-only Beatles show. John was alive, so we saw it with a much different perspective. We were still awaiting the release of "Double Fantasy," and we assumed that John would be around for decades to come. Joe, about your videotape of "Let It Be," there's a website called "Inflation Calculator." On it, $60 in 1981 appears as $207.31 in 2024!
Probably most first generation fans as I am see this film quite differently than the younger generations seeing it a decade or more later and way after the fact. We saw it against the backdrop of the breakup in real time as we did with everything they said and did since they entered our lives.So, this film matched our mood and it was dismal no matter how dark or not the film was. It was what the film meant in terms of the finality that they were no more as the Beatles. It was very emotional.
I will say, Let it Be near the end of the movie always gives me chills, just like Hey Jude at Twickenham in 1968. I had a man crush on Paul McCartney from those two songs. Two of Us also is great. I think those are what we saw on the Ed Sullivan show in 1970?
Great discussion, thanks as always. I guess I'm glad we have a cleaned up version of the original Let It Be, but after Get Back it's difficult to get past some of the storytelling flaws in the original movie. MLH could have made a great 2 hour movie which would have explained a little better what Beatles were trying to accomplish in Jan 1969. The transition from the big movie studio to the much more intimate studio at Apple isn't explained very well (if at all) in the original. The Billy Preston factor also is very underrepresented in the original movie. Billy was a major factor in the ultimate success and quality of those final songs, and the generally good mood once they changed studios. The whole George leaving the band (for almost a week I believe) isn't evident in the original movie. You are all correct, the audio and video quality of the new Let it Be is top notch. Glad we have it, but when I go back to 1969 I will go back and watch Get Back as my choice.
My thoughts in reference to the question " Do we need a remastered version of Let It Be?" I believe they've remastered and reissued their albums a couple times including solos, so why not? It is a part of Beatles history, that when it cane out, those songs were not the classics they are today and as I am a first gen Beatles fan I love the fact that we got to see how the "soup" was made.
31:10 - I agree with Michaels here. When I first saw Let it Be, I kept thinking they sound nothing like "themselves", but what we knew them as was already edited, mixed, etc., on records. I think they might have sounded like this when they recorded their first album. We saw them in the little funny suits, jumping and smiling, but Let It Be shows how they were BEFORE all that mixing, staging, posing, etc. I think his son is right, it probably is the best Beatles movie. They're not playing some wacky, albeit enjoyable caricature of themselves. This was who they really were at that moment, and it's fantastic and inspirational. It's a celebration of the writing, jamming and rehearsal process that I enjoy as a budding author. I take Let it Be into that.
When Michaels compared the rooftop to Candlestick Park, I was amused by the thought that the tape ran out at Candlestick before the show was over, and the rooftop isn't quite completely recorded and/or presented, either, so maybe it's a bit fitting. Makes me think of the film running out at the end of Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
25:40 - Joe's right about that. I remember reading that George got upset during Beatles for Sale about not being given enough to do, guitar-wise. Then I heard Paul walked out in the middle of She Said She Said - but did NOT have that car accident that decapitated him and on and on...I'm sorry, but this Paul is Dead thing is the funniest rumor I've ever heard about them😅😅😅😅
Kit might remember this service, seeing that she grew up in Chicago, but ON-TV, a local pay-TV service showed Let It Be in 1982, that was my first time watching it. It wasn't On-Demand, it was scheduled like regular television, so before I got a VCR, I had to take time off work, etc., make no plans, etc., just so I could watch it "live". I thought it was a bit boring at first, that this isn't anything like the Beatles - but yes, it WAS. This is how the four guys in the band were at that time. I had the same reaction to Vee-Jay's Introducing the Beatles, after hearing Abbey Road - "this can't be the Beatles, it sounds nothing like them. Where's She Loves You?😅😅😅
Yes, I remember ON-TV! It was the pre-cable service of Chicago! We didn't have it (Dad didn't want to pay for it, lol!), but how cool that that's your first experience with LIB! --Kit
@@talkmoretalksolobeatles It was so wild that night. I was watching a movie that came to its end, then I see "Coming Up!" The screen was black and I heard the opening piano intro. I shouted WHAT??? NO WAY!!! All I had to do was hear the chorus to Let it Be and see their faces and I had goosebumps already. In fact, I still do
53:30 - THE ARGUMENT - This just popped into my head, but have any of you seen "John & Yoko - A Love Story" which was that awful mess NBC put out in 1985? There's a bit of that right after John meets Yoko and the band immediately falls apart. One of the Doctor Who's is playing George Harrison giving Paul the death glare and scowling "I'll play whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play". Another bad bit from the TV movie is Paul playing "You Never Give Me Your Money", John looks like he's close to punching his lights out, and Paul has this smug superior demeanor about him when he sings the phrase "you break down". Wherever you can find this, hopefully you won't have to pay for it, I'd recommend it for a good laugh.
45:00 - George's F-bombs - if anyone had any reason to use the expression, it was George 😅 There's one in Get Back where he lays out his pending plans to make a solo album and says he could save it all for the Beatles, but "F-bomb all that"
33:25 - Beatlefest - Did I laugh my ass off when Yoko was booed and hissed and Terri Hemmert told us to shut up later on😅😅😅😅. We were only having a laugh, as they say. We even booed and hissed Norm and Shake in a Hard Day's Night. Corporate greed and political correctness took the fun, love and laughter out of Beatlefest for me. I'm never going again.
