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DVD Ed Sullivan Presents the Beatles
A great concept: The Beatles appeared four times on CBS' The Ed Sullivan Show, and while one is tempted to skip through this collection to watch only the Fab Four's 20 performances, there is historic value in seeing Sullivan's complete programs. With America reeling from the murder of a popular president, JFK, less than three months prior, the Beatles' Sullivan debut on February 9, 1964, ushered a renewing joy into the country's living rooms. The band kept it up another two weeks, sharing Sullivan's variety-show bills with the likes of impressionist Frank Gorshin, comedians Allen & Rossi, future Monkee Davy Jones (in a scene from Oliver!), and sundry unrepentant vaudevillians, magicians, and acrobats. Various problems with microphones and bad direction (one barely sees John Lennon on 2/9) couldn't stop the magic, and by the time the Beatles made a return trip in September 1965, the group's brilliance and wit outsized their television surroundings. --Tom Keogh
I am old enough to claim that the Beatles were still technically a group when I was born. But I wasn't one of the millions upon millions of people who saw these shows when they were originally broadcast. Considering so many people (listeners, fans, musicians, journalists) all agree that this was a pinnacle moment for them, the shows themselves had been pretty much hidden from public view since they aired. I had seen the clips of them playing in the "Anthology" and other documentaries. I thought their performances were fun, but I never had a feeling of how they fit in with contemporary 1964 culture and why it was all such a big deal. Until now. The two-set DVD has the four Ed Sullivan shows, complete with commercials, from February, 1964 and September, 1965. All I can say is... wow. The shows themselves feature a variety of acts, but they all share one thing in common: they are all totally lame compared to the Beatles. Mitzi Gaynor singing "It's Too Darn Hot"? Yikes! The comedy musings of Dave Barry? Oh dear. I can commiserate all too well with the Anacin commerical as it intones, "pain... pain... pain..." Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh here. I did enjoy Tessie O'Shea. She's not cool and she's not trying to be. She's just having fun and it's infectious as she belts her way through a bunch of old standards. The bit from "Oliver!" was cute (see the young Davy Jones, later of Monkees fame) and it was historically amusing to see Sonny Liston take a bow as the "heavyweight champion of the world"... when we know he will be knocked out by Cassius Clay the following week. You begin to understand how much of a shock the Beatles were to the national psyche. Long hair? Maybe not from today's standards, but look at what everyone else looks like on these shows! Music? Well, today Beatles music is all mixed up on the radio, played against songs made some 10 - 20 years after their debut. Here, you can see what they were up against at the moment... and they just blow the doors off of everyone including Cilla Black, one of their contemporaries. The video is clearest on the clips that feature the Beatles (as you would imagine). The rest varies. Some looks a bit blurred and there are some analog tracking issues. Well, the videotape is 40 years old, in a format that has been dead for at least 20 years. It's probably a miracle that the shows look as clean as they do. The sound is pretty good, but keep in mind that these were live performances. And "TV" and "hi-fidelity" didn't exactly go hand in hand in 1964. The second show in "Myamuh Beach" has some serious audio defects, but that how it sounded then. I enjoyed the live performances, warts and all. Unlike a lot of shows from the 1960's, the performances on Ed Sullivan were live rather than lip-synched. DVD extras? Not a one. The shows themselves are the extras. There's no documentaries necessary, no secondary audio channel needed to explain the phenomenon, it's just, "Ladies and Gentlemen... the Beatles". And really, that's all you need in the end.
Great value for your money!
I bought this collection when it was an Internet and television-only special offer through the official Ed Sullivan site. It was twice the cost of what it's going for now, but was still a bargain. This is a wonderful time capsule of four hours of network television from 1964 and 1965.
I can't believe that some other reviewers are complaining about the inclusion of all the other Sullivan acts and the commercials. First, did they even READ the Amazon.com description of the product?? ["A great concept: The Beatles appeared four times on CBS' The Ed Sullivan Show, and while one is tempted to skip through this collection to watch only the Fab Four's 20 performances, there is historic value in seeing Sullivan's complete programs."]
Second, if you're a die-hard Beatles fan THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. Every single live Beatles performance aired from the stages of the Ed Sullivan show, placed within the context of the original airings. And none of the performances truncated, as they are on many other collections and in subsequent television airings.
And, guess what? With the wonderful state-of-the-art, cutting-edge technology of DVD, if you don't like the other performances you can go right to the Beatles songs directly from the menu. No fast forwarding! ISN'T TECHNOLOGY WONDERFUL?? Hey, hey! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!!
A few words of advice: Buy it. Now. The Beatles, unlike the people running the Elvis Presley enterprise, are notorious for being concerned about the amount of product on the market. You never know when something of theirs will go out of print, or how long it will take to come back into print. (Remember the long-gone "Rock and Roll Music" and "Love Songs" albums ... or the many years that "Live at the BBC" was out of print?) Yes, I know it's a SOFA production and not Apple, but who knows how much Apple's blessing had to do with this DVD's appearance on the market?
And just what have some people got against Soupy Sales doing "The Mouse" anyway???"
PILSBURY PUSH BUTTON CAKE DECORATOR !
I give it 5 stars just for the ads alone! I'd already seen the Beatle footage over the years, most of the other acts were very ordinary with the exceptions of Soupy Sales, Morecombe and Wise, Cab Calloway, and Acker Bilk. The ads make the buying of this DVD worthwhile. My favorites were the silly 1965 Lipton Ice Tea ad with George Fenneman in the little boat, the Stepfordish 1964 Lipton ad with the wife making her husband a cup of tea in the creepiest looking kitchen I've seen, and of course the cute "Pilsbury Push Button Cake Decorator" ad from the second show. If Pilsbury made and sold products in Australia I would have bought one just because I like the old commercial so much. Who said old advertising doesn't work? But seriously, that's what I personally like about this set, buy it yourself, even if you don't like ads or whatever. You can always skip thru them, they couldn't back in the 60's.
Any fan of Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night won't want to miss the documentary The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit by Albert and David Maysles. The Maysles brothers were given extraordinary access to the Beatles during their first trip to the U.S., in February 1964, for several concerts and their seminal first appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Like Hard Day's Night, which came out later that year, this film (also known as What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.) shows lots of spontaneous cheekiness with the press and fans; the Beatles' wide-eyed bemusement at the hysteria they caused; as much cutting up as a tiny hotel room allows; and even specific scenes--goofing off on a commuter train, mod dancing in a nightclub--that would later... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Susan Frömke - Kathy Dougherty - Albert Maysles DVD Release Date: Released the 03 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Exceptionally moving but not the least bit sentimental, Concert for George is a splendid tribute to the late George Harrison, whose contributions to the Beatles were so often hidden in the long shadows of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A year to the day after Harrison's November 29, 2001 death, Eric Clapton assembled some musicians--people who had played with Harrison and known him intimately, including McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Tom Petty--to perform his music at London's Royal Albert Hall. They take on not just the predictable ("My Sweet Lord" and "Something," beautifully sung by Billy Preston and Sir Paul, respectively), but also lesser-known fare like "Old Brown Shoe" and "Beware of Darkness," all to superbly empathetic effect. But the tune most likely to make you misty-eyed... More Info about this DVD Director(s): David Leland DVD Release Date: Released the 18 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I'm always wary of all the "rare" Beatles stuff out there, but found this DVD a great surprise. There were things on this DVD i had only seen pictures of before. Some of the interviews provided here are somewhat unintelligible and obviously incomplete, but you get to see the Beatles in many different settings just being themselves. Clips from the Hollywood Bowl, the claustrophobia of Beatlemania and a Shakespearean comedy skit are the best treasures. Quality is good... no silly narration... more a collection of clips than a structured documentary. More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Fab Four from Liverpool--John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr--in their first movie. Nobody expected A Hard Day's Night to be much more than a quick exploitation of a passing musical fad, but when the film opened it immediately seduced the world--even the stuffiest critics fell over themselves in praise (highbrow Dwight Macdonald called it "not only a gay, spontaneous, inventive comedy but it is also as good cinema as I have seen for a long time"). Wisely, screenwriter Alun Owen based his script on the Beatles' actual celebrity at the time, catching them in the delirious early rush of Beatlemania: eluding rampaging fans, killing time on trains and in hotels, appearing on a TV broadcast. American director Richard Lester, influenced by the freestyle... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): George Harrison - John Lennon - Paul McCartney Director(s): Richard Lester DVD Release Date: Released the 24 September 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The late John Lennon's life and work are plainly visible in this stirring collection of short films and music videos, some very familiar while others, produced posthumously, will be new to many viewers. The set includes the classic "Imagine" clip, which begins with a haunting scene of John and Yoko walking through an early morning fog and concludes with Lennon's performance in an all-white room. More rare is a Top of the Pops live performance of "Instant Karma" and a wonderful film accompanying "Mind Games," in which a solo Lennon clowns around Central Park, thrilling passersby, playing with kids, and dancing. "Woman" is a montage of the last days and hours of Lennon's life, while "Watching the Wheels" is a compilation of home movie footage from the star's semi-reclusive Dakota... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Lennon DVD Release Date: Released the 18 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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