Beatles Come To Town – DVD
Taken mainly from the Pathe online archives, this release offers much never seen before footage and unused scenes – along with unused camera angles. Seemingly all versions of the Beatles Come To Town documentary that have survived over the years are included: You have a choice of a “rough edit,” “broadcast version,” “b&W work print”, “35mm,” and “70mm” versions. All are fair to good quality.
Nothing is truly better than what we’ve had unless we get something from the negative. The unused footage consists mainly of audience shots and scenes with the fans. Not terribly exciting. Watching individual camera angles of the Beatles perform live is the real treat here.
The DVD does suffer from having low resolution and shows the hallmarks of the source being the internet. It doesn’t look that good on a computer screen; though luckily this is a treasure trove of material. I was certainly hoping for better quality from the Pathe archives. I know there was a FAB release of this material, but it includes other superfluous material that is irrelevant to this documentary (such as interviews, the Beatles arrival at airports, Empire Theater performance, Royal Variety Show, etc.) Sometimes I’m not in need of a disc being overloaded just to fill it out. I prefer this Misterclaudel release for being specific to the documentary – though much of it is duplicated time and time again throughout the DVD.
The one item I truly find annoying is the multi-angle versions that can include (for instance) up to three camera angels shown separately in the same frame. It’s a great tool if I were using each camera’s footage to do my own edit of the song. But it’s distracting to watch and filler. I also didn’t like some silent footage (on the early chapters of the DVD) have overdubbed Beatles songs from the commercial CDs. Preferably, I’d rather have had them use the live audio from the songs performed live here, at the ABC Cinema in Manchester.
Is it highly recommended? I’d say not. Begrudgingly, I recommend this release only because it includes new footage and the release is specific only to the Beatles Come To Town.
Misterclaudel – MCDVD 25
Reviewer: Howard Fox (aka Beatle Bob)
