Product Description

They were four ordinary lads from Liverpool who became the biggest rock band the world had ever seen. Wherever they went, they won hearts and sold millions of discs and cinema tickets. What was so special about them that they could fill concert halls and airports form Tokyo to New York with thousands of fans? Why did the dream die and what have "The Fab Four" left behind? In short, who were the Beatles and how did they conquer the world? In this program, we look at their progress week by week through the best days of their lives with footage of fans and interviews, destinations and encounters, good times and bad. The Beatle Diaries tells you all you need to know about the significant events of the Fab Four's glory years. Travel with John, Paul, George and Ringo from their early days in Liverpool to San Francisco, where they played their last concert together.

DVD Extras:
Beatles Across America rockumentary and complete Len Dodd TV Show interview.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25436 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-04
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Customer Reviews

Some gems, lots of filler
There are some really fine clips of Beatles antics and snips of interview materials that were new and interesting to me. Yet I found there to be far too many airport longshots of screaming teenaged fans, which after the fifth scene of screaming fans it becomes pretty dull!
The "documentary" does an OK job of covering the early history, utilizing many chronological lists of things like singles releases and drug experimentation.......... I was left wishing that it dug deeper..... worth a watch, only purchase if you are a Beatles fanatic!

Some nice rare footage, super for the inexpensive price
Like all Beatle fanatics, I'm always on the hunt for rare archival footage, and for the cheap price, this is a pretty good buy. You have to skip through the majority of boring year-by-year commentator narration, but the clips of choice are the '63/'64 interviews/awards, Ringo's interviews after his tonsil operation, the MBE interview, Yellow Sub comments by Paul and George, Paul and Linda post-wedding clips, and the '66 interviews and newsreel footage.

Contrary to another review here, there isn't much more of the 'bigger than Jesus' footage. I recall a PBS station in the mid'80s running LOADs of unseen footage, with follow-on questions to Paul and John by the media at the same hotel press conference; I had it on Beta, but who knows where it ended up. It's in someone's possession, but it's not here.. Just pretty much the same stuff you'll see on Anthology. The '66 interview with the group prior to a concert was pretty good (mentioned elsewhere), but George and Ringo didn't necessarily look 'happily stoned'.

All in all, I agree with others, that for the price, it's an excellent value for the 10 minutes of accumulated rare footage time you do get. Just buy a bunch of these cheap DVDs, don't expect too much, keep the ones with the must-have, hard-to-find footage, store 'em in your Beatle archive and toss out all the rest.

Classic
This was bought as a gift but I'm told the DVD was very well done. Much enjoyed.