User Reviews

The idea of making a film about the Beatles sounds doomed idea, as no production can catch the idea of the actual historic Beatles. Then it is perhaps best not to try to recreate the past, but to produce an illustration that works best with the other available Beatles material. This is exactly what 'Birth of the Beatles' offers to us, the simple story known to us without any extravaganza.

*** SPOILERS here on ***

Be warned that not everything is that accurate as some Beatles-graduates might expect. The Beatles are seen performing songs that hardly were even composed by that time. The Beatles perform "Ask Me Why", "P.S. I Love You" and even "Don't Bother Me". The Beatles-graduates should see that if the Beatles on the film only performed songs that they actually did at Hamburg, the younger viewers might not anymore recognize the Beatles they have learned to know them. Of that original Hamburg repertoire only "Johnny B. Goode" and Stu Sutcliffe's "Love Me Tender" are retained.

The guys who play the Beatles in this production scarcely look like the originals, but the rest of the film still make good viewing as the film is for the rest fairly accurate. The guy who plays Lennon does it good and the rest of the band are not bad either. Brian Epstein is great and the moment when he sacks Pete Best from the group is probably the most memorable scene in the whole film. Also as a bonus you get to see the original Cavern club in the film.

Birth Of The Beatles, dating back to 1979, is a reasonable stab at presenting the pre-fame Beatles story in the context of a (made-for-TV) feature length dramatisation.

Of course, it isn't 100% accurate - how could it be? - but it gives a fair flavour of those times, and presents the main milestones in a relatively fair way.

The cast is, on the whole, solid. They don't always capture the essences of the individuals they portray, with one exception: Stephan MacKenna nails the young John Lennon with an uncannily accurate portrayal - voice, body language, mannerisms, everything is totally believable.

Having just watched this film again from a 1998 showing off VH-1, I just had to comment.

The first time I saw this film on TV, it was about 1981, and I remember taping it off of my mother's betamax. It wound up taping in black and white for some reason, which gave it a period look that I grew to like.

I remember very distinctively the film beginning with the song, "My Bonnie", as the camera panned over a scene of Liverpool. I also remember the opening scene where Paul gestures to some girls and says, "Look, talent!" So it was with great irritation that I popped in my 1998 taped version and "remembered" that the film opens with "She Loves You", instead of "My Bonnie". When you see how slowly the camera pans vs. the speed of the music, you can see that "She Loves You" just doesn't fit. Also, in this "later" version when Paul sees the girls, he says, "Look, GIRLS!"..and somehow having remembered the earlier version, THAT word just didn't seem to fit, either. Why they felt they had to Americanize this film for American audiences is beyond me. Personally, if I'm going to watch a film about a British band, I want all of the British colloquialisms and such that would be a part of their speech, mannerisms, etc.

Another irritation was how "choppy" the editing was for television. Just after Stu gets beaten, for example, the film cuts to a commercial break-LOTS of 'em. Yeah, I know it depends on the network, but it really ruins the effect of a film to have it sliced apart, as we all know. What some people might find as insignificant in terms of dialogue (and thereby okay to edit), may actually go the way of explaining a particular action or scene that follows.

My point is, the "best" version of this film was probably the earlier version I taped from 1981, which just so happened to include the "Shake, Rattle & Roll" scene that my 1998 version didn't. I started to surmise that there had to have been two different versions made for television, and a look at the "alternate versions" link regarding this film proved me right. That the American version had some shorter/cut/different scenes and/or dialogue is a huge disappointment to me and something worth mentioning if one cares about such things. Imo, ones best bet is to try and get a hold of the European version of this film, if possible, and (probably even less possible), an unedited version. Sadly, I had to discard my old betamax European version because I didn't know how to convert it.

All that aside, I found this film to be, perhaps, one of the best films regarding the story behind the "birth of the Beatles". Being well aware that artistic and creative license is often used in movies and TV when portraying events in history, I didn't let any discrepancies mar my enjoyment of the film. Sure, you see the Beatles perform songs at the Cavern that made me wonder, "Did they even write that back then?? I don't think so", but, nevertheless, I thought it was a great film and the performances, wonderful.

The real stand-out for me, in fact, was the actor who played John, Stephen MacKenna. I just about fell in love with him. His look, mannerisms, personality and speaking voice seemed to be spot-on. He looked enough like a young John for me to do a double-take towards the end of the film when you see the Beatles performing on Ed Sullivan for the first time. I actually found myself questioning whether or not it was actual Beatle footage, until I saw the other actors in the scene.

If you're looking for a dead accurate history of The Beatles' life and beginnings, you can't get any better than, "The Beatles' Anthology", as it was "written" by the boys', themselves. However, if you're looking for a fun snapshot of their pre-Beatlemania days leading up to their arrival in America and you leave your anal critical assessments at the door, you can't go wrong with the "Birth of the Beatles"--a MUST for any "real" or casual Beatle fan.

As mentioned by other reviewers there are a host of inaccuracies within this version of the Beatles early days, and yet. There is something genuinely enjoyable about this film. Just for once the character of John's humour is clearly in evidence. Too many early "Beatles" films show John as the angry young man always shouting and being nasty/violent. While that may have been a facet of his character this simply does not equate with the comments of Tony Sheridan and some other people from those Hamburg days. They talk about Johns magnetic personality. How everyone wanted to be with John, to sit next to him. This simply would not have happened if all he had was anger and aggression. Another aspect to the film is the banter between group members and again the quick fire humour. So while not a good film about a great group I would urge film buffs and especially Beatles fans to view this take to avoid getting a one sided view of early Beatles life.

This movie receives such high praise from other reviewers, because other films about the Beatles beginnings are so bad.

Contains much that is out of order and completely falsified. Stewart Sutcliff's death is presented more than six months before it happened.

The Beatles are told that they have a recording contract while in England, while actually Brian Epstein (their manager) cabled them in Germany to let them know.

The first time they meet George Martin (their producer) it is actually long after they met him historically.

They tell Brain they want Ringo in and Pete out before they even meet George Martin, and it was George Martin along with George Harrison who were the biggest advocates in getting rid of Pete.

Dick Row (Decca executive) is presented in a scene giving his famous lone (which was actually delivered over the phone) as George Martin walks in (who worked for competing record company EMI).

There are numerous of these historical inaccuracies. There is a scene where John Lennon chastises Brian Epstein for not getting a record contract that I have never heard of. And at that point Brian had raised their appearance fee from 16 pounds a performance to 100 pounds, making the confrontation unlikely and contrived.

Also this film has the Beatles playing songs years before they were written or recorded by previous groups.

The Decca recording session on January 1, 1962 presents them playing songs that are not in the actual set.

Has the Beatles in the wrong costumes and playing the wrong song for their opening appearance for Ed Sullivan.

Almost worthless as history, but it does have some of the music.

I'll give this movie a 4 just on the basis that it's better than "Backbeat" (90's art-film hogwash about the bromance between John and Stu), and it gets a little bit of a pass for being the first movie to really tackle the beginnings of The Beatles.

BUT! There are still plenty of things about it that make my skin crawl. The actors look ten+ years older than the 20 year-old Beatles they're playing. Especially in the early scenes the guys act like wacky cartoon characters; sweet, goofy, ambitious young men with a dream in their hearts! In reality, the Hamburg-era, pre-Epstein Beatles were raunchy, groupie-screwing, foul-mouthed, drunken lunatics, Lennon especially. This movie kinda makes them out to be boy scouts (but again, in 1979, the full extent of their hedonism probably was still pretty unknown). Like a lot of other reviews have stated, Pete Best was the main historical consultant on this, so all the circumstances around his sacking should be taken with a grain of salt (listen to a pre-Ringo recording of The Beatles - Pete was a pretty horrible drummer).

I've said this about "Backbeat" too, but it should be noted that The Beatles were pretty notoriously terrible before they shipped off to Hamburg. I know they only had so much time to cram in a lot of info, but the film shows very little musical growth; we just have to pretend that they were amazing from the beginning.

Other things: in addition to a very polished, 1964-sounding Beatles on stage in Hamburg, there's also an overwhelmingly syrupy, dramatic score all over everything. They have Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison being a lot nicer to Pete and Stu than they allegedly were in real life (they gave Stu endless grief for being a crappy musician, and couldn't stand Pete Best's moody "bad boy" BS). Like in "Backbeat", Allan Williams, their first manager, is completely absent from the film. Brian Epstein is treated like a sensitive little toddler rather than the smooth, suave businessman he was.

I dunno, I always think the main issue with these Beatle movies is that the writers never actually know enough about The Beatles to accurately capture everyone's personality or the history. This is like watching...well, a mediocre TV movie. It makes the most badass rock band of all time look like they belong in a stupid after-school special. I recommend "Nowhere Boy" or "The Beatles Anthology," but this one's okay I guess, especially for how old it is.

I saw this film only once when it premiered on the ABC movie of the week. I have always hoped to find it again on TV but to no avail. What this film tries to do in a 90 minute span is tell the story of the start of The Beatles from the beginning in Liverpool. As far as facts go there are some discrepancies.The songs that are preformed is one but the sacking of Pete Best was way off. From reading the book "Shout" ( a must for any Beatle fan, if you can find a copy get it)That scene we all know was coming. To me it was personal as Pete Best was involved in the making of the film. Overall not a bad film but I always hoped that they would do a second film with the same actors to continue the history of the band leading up to the breakup. I guess they did not think we needed to see it.My biggest problem with movies about rock bands is that they skip over things you want to see and always leave you with a happy ending (HYSTERA the Def Leppard story anyone?) If any die hard Beatle fan has not seen this movie try to find it I think you might enjoy it.