Magical Mystery Tour[Blu-ray]

Maybe it’s a little bit of both. I saw MMT on a lousy VHS tape over 30 years ago. My impression was that it was unwatchable. Skip ahead and decided to give this (majorly) upgraded blu-ray a chance. Wow. So much more enjoyable. Sound is great especially in DTS. Yes, it’s strange and disjointed but it’s quite fun to watch especially as a time-capsule. From what I gather, MMT was really just a Beatles experiment. That being said, it’s maybe one of the first actual music videos. Hence, there were really no rules or templates, just pure experimentation. It has it’s share of goofiness with the airfield race, and that spaghetti scene is nauseating. However, the videos are solid as well as the bonus material. All in all, I’m not disappointed and watch it frequently. One of the better Beatle remasters.

I often feel The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" film has been treated rather unfairly by critics in the past. Of course, you might sense a hint of bias on my part because I'm such an enormous fan of the Beatles, but I genuinely think the film has a lot to offer if approached the right way. The film was made for television in September 1967 and shown on BBC1 on Boxing Day evening that year. It was meant to be a colour extravaganza but the BBC broadcast it in black and white so even the 200,000 or so people with colour TV receivers in Britain at the time would not have been able to watch it as it was intended to be presented. Therefore, the aerial views shot over Iceland that were used for the "Flying" instrumental sequence would have been lost on initial viewers. Even so, that wouldn't have been enough for critics and viewers alike to pan the production. I suppose it was pretty far out and not at all what people were expecting, especially for festive period viewing from the biggest band in the world with whom they associated the stuff of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" when it came to Beatles' films. The Beatles (particularly Paul) had been experimenting with making home movies and from this grew the idea for making "Magical Mystery Tour". The group's manager, Brian Epstein had just died and, as the story goes, Paul came up with the project as a means to keep the band actively involved with one another at a time when Epstein's death could have splintered them. They had stopped touring and had only recently released an album ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band") and single ("All You Need Is Love"), so the idea of doing a television film was, perhaps, the best direction. Some fans and music critics like to blame Paul for the Beatles' failings after Brian died. Indeed, John Lennon did so himself later on, accusing Paul of keeping the band going for his (Paul's) own sake. Perhaps there's some truth in that but I don't think Paul was being entirely selfish. The Beatles were still a band and, therefore, still had a job to do. Paul was always prolific when it came to writing music and coming up with ideas and I think he was just excited and keen to run these by the group and commit them to tape. John might have later complained about Paul always being the one to call the other three band members up and saying it was time to make another record, but if he hadn't then the other three would have just sat around being unproductive. Thus, Paul became the driving force in the band's later years and was almost forced to take charge after Brian died just so as to get things done. Paul often gets the blame for "Magical Mystery Tour" but don't forget George, Ringo and John all happily went along with it and made their own contributions. If they didn't like it they could have always vetoed the idea. I first saw "Magical Mystery Tour" in 1992 when I bought a copy of it on VHS video tape from the local supermarket in Withington. My dad bought my mum a Betamax video recorder for Christmas in 1984 and by '92 it had breathed its last. He replaced it with a VHS video player but when we installed it we found, for some odd reason, that it would only play video tapes in black and white. I find it pleasingly ironic that my very first viewing of "Magical Mystery Tour" was colourless, just like the people who originally tuned in to watch it on the television 25 years earlier. Dad took the video recorder back to the store to get a replacement and I was then able to rewatch "Magical Mystery Tour" in colour. Unlike the viewers' anticipating its original broadcast in 1967, I had the benefit of watching the film for the first time knowing that it had not been well-received and had been saddled with a bad reputation for all these years. In other words, my expectations were allowed not to be high but I was still extremely excited to see 53 minutes of footage of the Beatles that I had never seen before but had only heard about. I could, and still can, understand how people would have been disappointed with the nonsensical aspect of it all, especially as there was no plot. The film consisted of segments, often very surreal ones, which had seemingly been `thrown' together. Indeed, most of it was improvised. Having said that, I love the "marathon" chase around the airfield in Kent and I think Victor Spinetti's incomprehensible army drill sergeant is brilliantly hilarious and the best of his three performances in the Beatles' films. Just as funny are the scenes between Ringo and his Aunt Jessie, played by Jessie Robins and I love the nighttime sharabang scenes where everyone's drinking and singing songs to an accordion accompaniment. Derek Royle and Ivor Cutler are terrific as Jolly Jimmy and Buster Bloodvessel respectively, and I wish the John Lennon-directed "Nat's Dream" scene of Nat Jackley as Happy Nat The Rubber Man chasing women around the Atlantic Hotel's outdoor swimming pool has been kept in the movie as it's a great little sequence, I think. It is included as a deleted scene on this 2012 DVD release of the film. The one thing I haven't yet mentioned about "Magical Mystery Tour" is perhaps the most important thing of all - the music. The six new Beatles' tracks featured in the film that formed the "Magical Mystery Tour" double EP are all wonderful and the film serves as a means of providing six little "music videos" for each of them. I've never been very keen on Paul's "Fool on the Hill", I have to admit, but I can appreciate its merit and why it's one of his most popular songs. The footage of him in France that was shot for the song's inclusion in the film is beautiful. Likewise, George's "Blue Jay Way" isn't a big favourite of mine but there's some wonderful, psychedelic projection art used by and for the camera to play over the song. Paul has said in retrospect that one example he uses in defending "Magical Mystery Tour" is the section with "I Am The Walrus", citing it to be the only chance to see John Lennon in fully psychedelic regalia performing the song with backup visuals of policemen and `eggheads'. It truly is a striking glimpse into John Lennon's beautifully baffling imagination from the summer of love period. It's strange how the Beatles' first failing should follow directly from what is widely believed to be their greatest achievement, the "Sgt. Pepper" album. Paul has said that "Magical Mystery Tour" was made more as an "art" film than a "proper", conventional film. I don't think people in 1967 were ready for something like that, particularly from the Beatles, but I enjoy watching it from time to time. I think it has to be said that it would have been better had a plot been thought through for it and a script written but, as I've mentioned, there are plenty of delightful little moments to make it entertaining enough.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR was filmed in the fall of 1967, and was The Beatles' first major project after the death of manager Brian Epstein. While the film's soundtrack (a double-EP in Britain, an 11-song album in America, which was also imported into the UK, where it was eventually released on cassette in 1973 and on LP in 1976) was an enormous success, the film was not. It was first shown on the BBC on Boxing Day (26 December) 1967 in monochrome (most British viewers had black-and-white TV sets) and was not received well by the public, or by critics ("blatant rubbish" and "tasteless nonsense" were two of the milder descriptions). A second colo(u)r broadcast appeared on BBC2 on 05 January 1968, but only the few Britons who had "colour" TVs saw it, and the damage was done. In America, both ABC and NBC withdrew their bids for a network broadcast of MMT; the film made its U.S. debut at New York's Fillmore East a few months later as part of a fundraising concert. Over the years, Apple rented the film to colleges and indie movie theaters. The film did not appear on American TV until it was syndicated in 1985, which was where I saw it for the first time. A few poor-quality VHS tapes appeared in the early-to-mid-1980s, but the first proper video release was in 1988, when Apple and MPI Home Video released an official VHS tape , with a restored soundtrack by George Martin. In 1997, MPI released the film on DVD; I own The Beatles DVD Collector's Set that was released in 2000, which contains the original MPI DVD versions of MMT, HELP, THE FIRST U.S. VISIT (both of which have since been restored and re-released by Apple), and the Phil Collins documentary The Making of A Hard Day's Night , which was upgraded in 2014 (see below). MMT has been out of print for years, although it has been bootlegged, but has just been re-released by Apple in DVD and Blu-ray format, as well as the Deluxe Collector's Edition, which I purchased. To be honest, the film is no CITIZEN KANE or even A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. But it is a good piece of entertainment, and contains seven terrific Beatles songs: the title track, "The Fool On The Hill," the instrumental "Flying," George Harrison's "Blue Jay Way," the classic "I Am The Walrus," which appears in full stereo all the way through, and Paul's "Your Mother Should Know," which is the film's closing production number. "Hello Goodbye" plays over the closing credits. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's rendition of "Death Cab For Cutie" (featuring future Monty Python member and Rutle Neil Innes) is also an hilarious classic. One of the outtake scenes, Nat Jackley's romp around the pool with pretty girls, directed by John Lennon, features an unreleased Lennon-McCartney instrumental called "Shirley's Wild Accordion," played by accordionist Shirley Jackson. The stereo and 5.1 surround-sound soundtrack is excellent, and the picture restoration is good too, although some of the colors have faded over time. There are also four deleted scenes that are hidden on the main menu in the form of "Easter eggs"; two of them can be accessed by going to the "Play Film" option and clicking on the up-arrow or left-arrow key on your remote; the other two can be accessed by going to the "Audio Options" option and using either the up-arrow or right-arrow key. Sir Paul McCartney's Director's Commentary can either be listened to, viewed with subtitles if you don't want to override the film soundtrack, or both. There are two sets of subtitles; one for the main film, the other for Paul's commentary (11 languages in all). The subtitles also apply to the special features. See Amazon's product description for more on the special features on the DVD and Blu-ray. The Deluxe Edition is worth having for the additional 60-page book, including essays by Sir Paul McCartney and Barry Miles, and an "itinerary" of the scenes shot in the film. There is also a reproduction of the original mono vinyl double-EP that was issued in the UK in 1967. This brings my MMT collection full circle; I purchased the stereo EP years ago as an import; I have three versions of the vinyl album - the original 1967 Capitol LP (with three fake stereo Duophonic songs), the all-stereo German issue from 1971 (with the pink cover) that was the template for the later CD release, and the 1976 UK Parlophone pressing that is identical to Capitol's. I also have the original CD from 1987, the stereo/mono CD version of the EP, issued in 1992 as part of the Compact Disc EP Collection , and the remastered mono and stereo CDs from 2009. While it's not the best film, it's worth having, especially if you're a Beatle fan. Stripped of the dialogue, it would make an excellent long-form music video (unfortunately, there is no "songs-only" option). 4 stars for content; 5 stars for packaging and quality. Hopefully, if director Michael Lindsay-Hogg is right, the elusive LET IT BE will finally be out in 2013, and that a newly-restored 50th Anniversary edition of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT will be released in 2014 (the 2002 Miramax version sucks; until 2014, I watched the older MPI DVD ). UPDATE: Still no LET IT BE, but the updated A Hard Day's Night (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray + DVD) was finally issued in 2014, and includes an upgraded version of The Making of A Hard Day's Night .

Konieczne do kolekcji dla fanów The Beatles.

Ras. Conforme à mon attente. Film loufoque mais dans le pur style anglais de l'époque. Faut quand même être fan des Beatles pour regarder ce film.

Hay buen humor, disparatadas situaciones pero alegres, sonrisas, canciones de Beatles que suenan muy bien en la opción DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 producido por Giles Martin el hijo de George, campiña inglesa, playas, y hasta un genial strip-tease. Es pura diversión dentro de un sueño absurdo y encantadoramente positivo. Hay escenas relmente hilarantes y la interpretación de los Beatles es deliciosa, la escena de John con la niña es emotiva y preciosa. Los demás participantes aportan mucha diversión y buen hacer a una historia de un viaje en bus irreal pero revitalizadora como un buen sueño. La peli dura 53 minutos. Y luego viene un extra de la misma duración con comentarios de Paul McCartney en los que me lo pasé casi mejor que viendo la película. De siempre se dijo por una parte mayoritaria de la Crítica inglesa de la época que esta película era un fiasco enorme de los Beatles; tengo que decir que para nada comparto esa opinión, y que verla es pasarte casi una hora con una sonrisa de felicidad en la cara. Hay otra edición más completa que incluye DVD , 2 EPs y amplio libreto para los más sibaritas. A mí el presupuesto no me alcanza para tanto aparte de no tener reproductor de vinilos. Este Blu ray me parece buena adquisición por menos dinero. Pero esto va en función de lo que dispongas y de lo muy fan que seas del coleccionismo de los 4 de Liverpool. La entrega en un día. Y todo perfecto.

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