That could be it; to my knowledge, Let It Be was only released once on videotape in the eighties. I think the ending ofThe Beatles Anthology was re-edited a bit to downplay the legal and other fights of 1969, too.
Agree. If you're one of those people who think of Anthology as the "true" Beatle history (which many people seem to do, as if a Hitler autobiography would set the World War Two record straight) then the band broke up because Twickenham studios were a bit chilly.
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Free 'Let It Be'!
Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” has become the poster child for long-delayed projects, but some of us have been waiting even longer for something else:
A decent home-video version of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”
Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary, which shows the band squabbling before triumphantly performing atop their company’s London rooftop, hasn’t been in video circulation since low-quality VHS and Laserdisc versions were available in the mid 1980s. It has never been released on DVD.
Every few years there’s talk of a “Let It Be” disc with bonus material culled from the hours and hours of rehearsals and recording sessions filmed by Lindsay-Hogg’s crew. Then…nothing.
It should have come out upon the 2003 release of “Let It Be…Naked,” the Paul McCartney-approved, stripped-down version of the “Let It Be” album. Nope.
In February 2007, Neil Aspinall, who was running the Beatles’ company Apple Corps and has since died of cancer, told Fox News columnist Roger Friedman:“When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: This stuff is still controversial. It raised a lot of old issues.”
Those issues probably were 1) The movie captures the band lethargically making what generally is regarded as their worst album (though any other band wishes its worst album included such standards as “Let It Be,” “Get Back” and “The Long and Winding Road”), and 2) McCartney comes across as a domineering showboat; he irritates George Harrison with instructions on how to play the guitar solo on “I’ve Got a Feeling” and often flashes his puppy-dog eyes into the camera.
Being enough of a Beatles geek to have read Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt’s “Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ Disaster,” I’m sympathetic to Paul. As the authors show through their detailing of recordings for the film, he was the one trying to keep the band together while John Lennon was indifferent, strung out and almost surgically attached to Yoko Ono, George was so frustrated that he temporarily quit, and Ringo Starr was withdrawn. The movie barely nicks the tip of that iceberg.
But revising history is what DVD bonus footage and directors’ cuts are all about. I tried unsuccessfully to track down Lindsay-Hogg for comment, but I did reach an Apple spokesman who said, "There are no immediate plans for any sort of release of that film." Representatives for McCartney and Starr confirmed this.
Arrgh. The Beatles’ and McCartney’s legacies can survive the exposed warts of “Let It Be.” They survived “Magical Mystery Tour,” after all.
And “Let It Be” features some great moments and that surprise rooftop concert that thrilled and annoyed Londoners while prompting police to go ambling up those stairs. This is rock ‘n’ roll history.
I have a bootleg DVD of the original "Let It Be" movie that was released on VHS back in the '80's, as you've said. I really haven't watched it that closely, but there is alot of "stuff" going on in that film. I need to watch again and post what I've seen and think.
Duh...............just checked out my "Let It Be" DVD and it's a 2-disc set with the movie on one, and the other all the outtakes of the movie.........anybody know anything about this??? I bought this off of ebay a few years back................
Duh...............just checked out my "Let It Be" DVD and it's a 2-disc set with the movie on one, and the other all the outtakes of the movie.........anybody know anything about this??? I bought this off of ebay a few years back................
Does it say anything about the publisher? Date issued or country of origin? Can you post a photo?
Ok, Geoff............here's the front cover, back cover and the disc inside. And the disc are "purple" which means they're copied from some other source.
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Thanks for the photos; frankly I'm jealous! It's a very nicely packaged set, and only the NTSC "all" classification and the color of the discs give away the fact that it's a bootleg: a great fake, complete with bogus Apple (red?) and UA labels. I have no idea who made it, but I imagine the source must have been the laserdisc edition (but check for any distortion at the top or bottom of the picture that might imply videotape was the source) that was issued in the early eighties:
Let It Be was originally created by the Beatles' own production company, AppleCorps, with the distribution handled by United Artists (reportedly the result of a prior deal swung by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein long before anybody thought of home-video revenue). United Artists subsequently released Let It Be on home video in 1981, on tape in VHS and Betamax, and on Laserdisc via a license to Magnetic Video. All of these versions were mono, and thus largely inferior to the actual Let It Be studio recordings. Along with these, various other permutations of Let It Be float around eBay as well, including duped V-CDs and (apparently bootleg) tapes that feature "extra footage." It also appears that EMI may have released their own legitimate VHS of Let It Be, but outside of the UA releases, we can't confirm that any other versions are bona fide. As it turns out, the surviving Beatles purchased back the rights to Let It Be from United Artists in recent years, and our understanding is that they own the film outright.
The label commentary, which refers to the video but not the DVD edition of the Anthology, suggests that it may originate from before the DVD edition of the Anthology was released in the spring of 2003. The clumsiness of the diction also suggests that English is not the writer's first language, and although it's anybody's guess where this came from, somewhere in Asia might be a good guess to start with.
By the way, what's on the "outtakes" disc? Anthology Let It Be material?
The outtakes were a lot of footage of rehearsals not used in the theatrical release. One part I remember well was extended footage of Paul criticizing George on his guitar playing leading George to say: "OK, I'll play whatever you want me to play. Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it." (or something to that extent)
The last time I looked at the DVD was about a year ago. I'll have another look this weekend.
The outtakes were a lot of footage of rehearsals not used in the theatrical release. One part I remember well was extended footage of Paul criticizing George on his guitar playing leading George to say: "OK, I'll play whatever you want me to play. Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it." (or something to that extent)
The last time I looked at the DVD was about a year ago. I'll have another look this weekend.
I think that bit, or an excerpt or a reference to it , is on the Anthology, too: I'll have to go have a look as well - thanks.
By the way, here are some comments by Neil Aspinall on Let It Be and other matters from early 2007:
Beatles Ready For Downloading
By ROGER FRIEDMAN Fox News February 12, 2007
The Beatles songs — all of them — will be offered for downloading soon. That’s what Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple Corps Ltd. and the man who’s protected the Beatles legacy for the last 40 years — told me over the weekend.
“All 13 core albums, the ones originally released on CD in 1987, have been remastered," Aspinall told me. "At some point they will all be released, probably at the same time.”
But the film “Let It Be” remains in DVD purgatory, Aspinall says. The reason? “The film was so controversial when it first came out. When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: this stuff is still controversial. It raised a lot of old issues.”
All rock groups — all musicians and artists — should have a protector as devoted or committed as Aspinall. He’s never sold out the group or their legacy, but instead has been their fierce protector for nearly four decades.
Where others might have had the temptation to just cash out and take the billions of dollars being offered for one venture or another, Aspinall has proceeded with incredible care and caution.
John Lennon and George Harrison especially must be smiling at the thought of Aspinall keeping their names away from crass endeavors.
It was Aspinall who guided the Cirque du Soleil project, “Love,” which is not only a hit in Las Vegas but is a bestselling CD as well. It’s the only album that EMI Music can claim as a hit from this past Christmas.
Aspinall did confirm for me that not everything from the show is on the CD. “A lot of the transitions wouldn’t fit,” he said. And there will not be a DVD of the magnificent show at the Mirage.
“The Mirage doesn’t want it,” he said. “They want people to come see it.”
Now that Aspinall has “won” his longstanding lawsuit with Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer), he says downloaded Beatle songs will be coming to us soon.
If you missed it, Apple Corps. sued Apple Computer in 2002 over trademark violations after signing a 1991 agreement — and Steve Jobs paying the Beatles about $43 million.
Jobs et al won, but the case went to appeal. Before the appeals court could make a ruling, a settlement was reached.
The Beatles, sources say (and not Aspinall, whom I didn't even discuss this with), may have won royalties on Apple iTunes/iPod hardware as part of the settlement.
The settlement didn’t address downloading. But now Aspinall says that when the Beatles songs do get put on the Internet officially, “it will be on all the services, not just one.” So all the Beatles songs will be found on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc. That’s very “PC” of him!
And those 13 remastered albums? They will not include “Hey Jude,” a 1969 compilation album that Americans of a certain age fondly recall and keep in their collections on vinyl only.
Aspinall said he’d kind of forgotten about it.
“Do you know that Allen Klein” — who represented Lennon back then in the U.S. — “screwed that up!" Aspinall said. "He reversed the photos. The back picture was supposed to be the cover!"
Well, guys...........thanks for the info and help. And my DVD of "Let It Be" must have been copied from a laser disc because there are no lines above or below that you get from a tape recorded version. And, yes........it's very hard to watch.
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