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Beatles For Sale? Please Please Us

by Steve Rogers

The announcement for the DVD re-release of The Beatles 1965 classic film Help! has been greeted with a fair amount of delight and skepticism among the band's fans and videophiles alike. To say that the video catalog of the most important rock and roll band in history has been horribly underserved is putting it lightly. And don't get me started on the band's CD catalog remasters (at the rate Apple is going, Axl Rose may well produce a recording before we see those long delayed Beatles CDs).

But the arrival of an official two-disc release of the remastered version of Help! should be enough right now to warm the hearts of Beatlemaniacs everywhere. In addition to a 5.1 remastered soundtrack, it will include a bundle of bonus features, and there's even a deluxe edition with original poster reproductions and a hard cover 60-page book that will retail for the tidy price of $134.95 (talk about trying to cash in on the devotion and hunger of loyal fans desperate for all new things Beatles). Whether or not Apple/EMI gets it right remains to be seen, and DVDProfiles.com will most certainly be on the case with this important release. But all this begs the question: Where the heck is the rest of the Beatles filmed legacy?

It certainly goes without saying that the Beatles Anthology was a superbly produced, definitive video tribute to the band. But it was simply that – a tribute. The five major films which the Beatles involved themselves with during their existence (A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be) have, up until now, been available only in inconsistent versions on VHS, laserdisc and now DVD, if available at all. And, with the exception of Yellow Submarine, the quality has ranged from mediocre to execrable. Sure, we've all heard of the legal issues involved, the in-house squabbles, business concerns, etc. And frankly we don't care anymore. The Rolling Stones have had their share of legal rights issues but they've managed to release Rock 'N Roll Circus along with a Criterion Collection edition of Gimme Shelter. It's high time for the Beatles people in charge of this mess to get their act together. The 2002 Miramax edition of A Hard Day's Night was a step in the right direction but it deserves the same treatment that Help! apparently will be receiving. The Magical Mystery Tour DVD is an abomination, and Let It Be, probably the most intriguing of all Beatles films, has been unavailable in any official version on home video for decades.

All of these films should be remastered and reissued in deluxe versions, available individually and in a box set from Apple/EMI. It's time for all the lawyers, businessman, accountants, Paul and Ringo, Neil Aspinall, Steve Jobs, Porky Pig and whoever else it takes to sit down together and hash this thing out. If 2008 really is the year when music fans finally get those historic albums released on CD, then the true filmology of the band should be release simultaneously too in spectacular new editions. The Beatles, their legacy and most importantly the fans deserve nothing less.