The first trailer for the upcoming Beatles 64 documentary chronicling the band’s arrival on U.S. shores six decades ago captures the hysteria that greeted John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all those years ago.
The nearly two-and-a-half-minute clip opens with black and white footage of the band doing bits on a train ride before cutting to footage of McCartney wailing on a cover of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” The film directed by David Tedeschi (Personality Crisis: One Night Only) and produced by Martin Scorsese will premiere on Disney+ on Nov. 29.
The doc folds in footage shot by famed documentarians Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter), as well as new interviews with living members McCartney and Starr, as well as with Smokey Robinson, Motown founder Berry Gordy and the late Ronnie Spector. “We’re in America! America!,” Starr says enthusiastically to Scorsese at one point in describing the Beatles’ exuberance about making their trip across the Atlantic. Cue archival footage of Ringo raving about arriving in New York only to be told he’s actually in Washington, D.C.
“It was like being in the eye of the hurricane. It was happening to us and it was hard to see,” Lennon says in voiceover in the film that includes footage of the band’s first American concert. The trip included, of course, the Fab Four’s historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, where more than 73 million people tuned in to what would be the big bang of Beatlemania in the U.S.
A synopsis of the film reads: “On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived in New York City to unprecedented excitement and hysteria. From the instant they landed at Kennedy Airport, met by thousands of fans, Beatlemania swept New York and the entire country. Their thrilling debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show captivated more than 73 million viewers, the most watched television event of its time. Beatles ’64 presents the spectacle, but also tells a more intimate behind the scenes story, capturing the camaraderie of John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they experienced unimaginable fame.”
Director Tedeschi told Rolling Stone that the doc features more than 17 minutes of never-seen-before footage — mostly from the Maysles — with the music produced by Giles Martin. He said the movie covers the three week period the Beatles were in America, from their arrival in New York, where they stay four four or five days, before moving on to Washington and then Miami. The Washington show at D.C. Coliseum was the Beatles’ first-ever arena concert, with Tedeschi promising that the Martin-restored sound on the D.C. gig has made it sound “better than it ever has.”
“There’s footage from the Maysleses all the way through, but there’s other stuff. We had a great researcher who found a lot of local Miami footage from local archives — a lot of footage was buried, and he really had to go digging in order to find it. So that’s exciting,” the director said of the cleaned-up tape that was remastered by Peter Jackson’s WingNut Studios, which did the same for Jackson’s Get Back Beatles series.
In a fresh interview, McCartney notes that the Beatles’ visit came shortly after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, speculating that “maybe American needed something like the Beatles to be lifted out of sorrow.”
Watch the Beatles 64 trailer below
