Stunning unseen footage reveals The Beatles as never before

 

Peter Jackson got it back.

The “Lord of the Rings” director has been sifting through 56 hours of previously unseen footage of The Beatles rehearsing and horsing around from their final months playing together. Those moments led up to their infamous concert on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters on Savile Row in January 1969.

On the heels of the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination, Jackson is giving fans a “sneaky preview,” as he called it, of the film “The Beatles: Get Back.”

The unearthed footage was salvaged from Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s long-lost “Let It Be,” a 1970 television documentary charting the squabbles and tension in the lead-up to the band’s final album and concert, to lukewarm reception.

Rumor has it band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr blocked the release of the doc, complaining that it featured frontman John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, too prominently. 

But Jackson’s installment in the band’s final chapter is expected to be less contentious. The 59-year-old is in the process of editing in New Zealand.

“This film was due to be finished ’round about now,” said Jackson, who was forced to push back production due to COVID-19. He calls the footage “great stuff” and presents fans with a montage to get a “sense of the spirit” and the “vibe and the energy that the film’s going to have.” 

Fans are treated to about four minutes of good-natured footage of the band.

“And now, your host for this evening, the Bottles,” jokes a long-haired John Lennon in one cut. In another, the British bandmates read aloud from a newspaper column about George Harrison facing jail time in France. McCartney’s wife Linda Eastman and daughter Mary, plus Ono, and fashionable sets of groupies, producers and executives feature as the rock stars play. 

The fast-paced supercut serves as prelude to the film that Jackson promises sometime in 2021. Official trailers will be out next year too. For now, fans will have to be content with Jackson’s “montage of moments.” 

“Hopefully it will put a smile on your face in these rather bleak times that we’re in.” 

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