I just got a press release from PBS that they’re showing the Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” this Friday. Just one hour prior they’re also showing a documentary about the making of the movie. This is funny– two days notice, no fanfare on their website. You’d think after the whole Mitt Romney thing they’d be jumping through hoops with publicity. Anyway. “Magical Mystery Tour” was recently released on Blu-Ray DVD etc all remastered and spiffed up and ready for mass consumption.The Beatles and Apple have so much money, I don’t understand why they don’t use their publicist, Elizabeth Freund, to do these things properly. Everything is always a mystery, or a last minute surprise. It’s very annoying.
Here’s the release:
The story behind Magical Mystery Tour is revealed on Magical Mystery Tour Revisited on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances, Friday, December 14 at 9 p.m. on PBS. (Check local listings).
Now with the film fully restored to the highest technical standard with a remixed soundtrack, it’s time to tell the extraordinary story of Magical Mystery Tour: why it was made, how it was made and the circumstances in which it was made
To tell the story, this film calls on those who were there, most notably Paul McCartney, who had the original idea, and Ringo Starr, director of photography. John Lennon and George Harrison are represented through interviews over the years and through their appearances in the film itself and in the copious and fascinating outtakes.
Line producer Gavrik Losey and cameraman Michael Seresin evoke the heady atmosphere of the shoot, along with Jeni Crowley and Sylvia Nightingale who, as teenagers, reported from the coach for The Beatles’ Fan Club magazine. Paul Fox, then controller of BBC One, recalls making the deal with The Beatles for the film. Also sharing their reminiscences are Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Paul Gambaccini, Terry Gilliam, Neil Innes, Paul Merton, Barry Miles, Annie Nightingale.
It provides a chance to evoke 1967 as it was – post-war Britain as much as the summer of love, when a new set of artists with The Beatles at the helm came up with an alchemy that turned the ordinary and the commonplace into the magical and mysterious.
