The Beatles Films Podcast

Come 'ead, then. We start by looking at roughly the first 16 minutes of the Beatles' 1964 film debut. Expect a detailed breakdown of their first dialogue scene in the train carriage ("Who's that little old man?"), and how it establishes straight away through absurdist techniques that these characters don't inhabit a strict reality, giving Richard Lester licence to do more or less what he wants from now on. We unpack the generational and class dynamics at play in the encounter with the train commuter ("I bet you're sorry you won!") and discuss, in frankly more detail than anyone wants, whether or not the film is a musical.

A Hard Day's Night is often on BBC iPlayer, although not at the moment, and available to rent on a few streaming services. https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/a-hard-days-night There's also a good quality copy on YouTube at the moment, which might of course be taken down soon. Do yourself a favour and buy the Blu-ray anyway.
Get Samira Ahmed's excellent book about the film, from the BFI Modern Classics series: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-days-night-9781839029394/
Guns N' Roses' November Rain video, which as explained would not exist without I Should've Known Better: https://youtu.be/8SbUC-UaAxE
The Proclaimers jukebox musical Sunshine on Leith, which is great: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/sunshine-on-leith
A bit more on Theatre of the absurd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_absurd

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian Hart's third outing as John Lennon was 2013's Snodgrass, adapted by David Quantick from Ian R MacLeod's short story. Aired as part of the Sky Arts Playhouse series, it deals with a Lennon who left The Beatles in 1962 following his refusal to record How Do You Do It. With John now 50, bitter but insisting he did the right thing, it asks: where does creativity go when it has no outlet? We discuss this and its alternative timeline of a Beatles who went on to be nearly as big as The Hollies. Then we're joined by David Quantick to talk about how the project came to be and his attempts to make a feature-length version, the process of trying to capture Lennonian wit in dialogue, and his views on the Sam Mendes biopics and Paul McCartney's latest output, The Boys of Dungeon Lane.

You can watch Snodgrass, albeit not in great quality, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek89aSrwMN0
What is probably a better quality version is on Vimeo, but you need an age-verified account because it's supposedly "mature content": https://vimeo.com/240214664
David's website, including links to buy his books, is at https://davidquantick.com
Martin Carr's solo work is released under his own name: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3b02YDnufwl9CPIblMomrD and under the name bravecaptain: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4IpVpd0lNWwyReKr5MkloY
Beatles Forever by ELO (we apologise in advance): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4g3JgwYFio
David's mention of a film called The Ballad of John and Yoko starring "a McGann" is a reference to John and Yoko: A Love Story, which is on our list.

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Apple Films' 1971 documentary, Ravi Shankar is pondering whether he's diluted his beloved Indian classical music by promoting it to the West, through his association with George Harrison and The Beatles. We look at how the film explores this, and how it emphasises the spiritual connection necessary to perform the music, through techniques like focusing on the musicians' eye contact while playing. Plus! Was George actually rubbish at the sitar?

Watch the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvwf53_ZPEM
The final scene of Mad Men, in a very similar setting to the Esalen Institute, where Ravi and George practise sitar in Raga: https://youtu.be/LKPI56zW5AA

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're in agreement: this is the worst film we've covered. Yes, worse than Sextette. Ringo Starr's role in Frank Zappa's 1971 freakout film seems like it could've gone to anyone: is there a specific reason for using him as a Zappa avatar in this film? We also talk Zappa and free speech: do the arguably puerile lyrics undermine the virtuoso musicianship of Zappa and the Mothers of Invention? And did John Lennon and Yoko Ono rip off a Zappa song after they played together?

A WARNING: there is more effing and jeffing in this episode than usual, because of the necessity to quote some of the dialogue to discuss it.

Watch 200 Motels: https://m.ok.ru/video/1559126346278
The documentary The True Story of 200 Motels: https://youtu.be/hHupp3ZDKAk
Théâtre du Grand-Guignol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol
Cirque de Clunes on Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge: https://youtu.be/hPQHHP7dfjU
Benson Boone: https://youtube.com/@bensonboone
The Darkness: https://youtube.com/@theactualdarkness
Jamrag/King Kong, as of 2025's Power to the People box set, now credits Zappa as a writer: https://youtu.be/4BDPdquOpnk
Ringo's quote about his waning commitment to filmmaking is from Alan Clayson's book Ringo Starr: https://share.google/mEjJ4ljorGZFTVQmi

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This film is of Mark Lewisohn's 2022 stage show bringing to life what the Beatles did in 1962, enhanced by on-location filming by director Chris Purcell. We talk about how it showcases a performance style and an enthusiasm that belies a reputation for dry historical detail. And quite a bit about Ringo Starr's drumming, as it turns out.

You can rent Evolver 62 on Prime Video and Apple TV at the moment: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/evolver-62
And buy it on blu-ray in some territories: https://www.wowhd.co.uk/evolver-62/824355814323
The Bill Hicks bit with the Ringo joke in it: https://youtu.be/-jIuP_Uk7Ak
The Red Dwarf episode with the Ringo joke is series 2, episode 6, "Parallel Universe": https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00b8qy6/red-dwarf-ii-6-parallel-universe. See also series 1, episode 2, "Future Echoes" in which we find out Lister's robot goldfish are called Lennon and McCartney.
The Ringo interview it turns out we were both thinking of was actually with Dave Stewart, not Elvis Costello: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl9188EPdLI
Trailer for Bart Layton's The Imposter, which repopularised reconstructions in documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1kHod0xa_8
Actor Peter Boyle, at whose wedding John Lennon was best man: https://share.google/7TH4WLlIiuMSOvzW1
Ed's point towards the end about how the surfeit of biography online affects fandom is paraphrased from Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People? by Claire Dederer: https://share.google/pXQbXdAMaKS5qEJdf

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.