Matteo’s skill lies in vividly recreating the key episodes of the Beatles in the act of making cinematic history. He further utilizes Bob Neaverson’s The Beatles Movies of 1997 and Roland Reiter’s The Beatles on Film of 2008, though he eschews academic forays into Roland Barthes and the meaning of the Beatles as a ‘cultural brand’ or ‘heritage object’ in favor of providing a dramatic overview of the band’s adventures on celluloid. Matteo also engages with Paul McCartney’s mammoth The Lyrics, and other writers, including Mersey Beat creator Bill Harry and the late, great Roy Carr, whose colorful and beautifully illustrated Beatles at the Movies of 1996 reigned supreme for a good while with its exclusive McCartney interview and its amusing photo captions. He sources the Beatles’ own words in their book The Beatles Anthology, Mark Lewisohn and co.’s authoritative topographical pinpointing in The Beatles’ London, and the deep well of dates and criticism that is Halliwell’s Film Guide (of which there are many subsequent editions). So it’s lucky that his great strength is to weave a mass of historical and contextual material on the five movies into an engrossing grand narrative. Whether an aficionado of the movies or not, it’s obvious that Matteo has an awful lot to cover in this book. Kramer and Klaus Voormann to Hunter Davies, Robert Freeman, Cameron Crowe, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and an unreconstructed Tony Bramwell (“dolly bird” references and all). We benefit from new interviews Matteo conducted with surviving Beatles insiders, filmmakers, and photographers alike, from Billy J.
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Act Naturally is the result of extensive audio-visual research into the copious film and soundtrack reissues of recent years on DVD and Blu-ray, the bonus material therein, the original theatrical film releases, and, perhaps most importantly, Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary series of 2021. Readers who think little of the Beatles movies will gain an appreciation for these flicks from the fresh insights, new perspectives, and often surprising connections Matteo has to offer. They’ll find in Matteo a guide that delves into every nook and cranny of these films, having already written successfully on Let It Be (the album) for the 33 1/3 series and Let It Be (the film) for Cambridge University Press’ The Beatles in Context. Given Act Naturally‘s extraordinary detail, it’s a must for those who’ve seen the movies many times and revel in seeing John Lennon as a waiter, shoveling spaghetti onto a plate, or Paul McCartney, as a taskmaster, infuriating George Harrison about his guitar playing in a cavernous film studio. He lays out all this while providing the lowdown on how each film was conceived, written, financed, filmed, cast, produced, promoted, and received. A Hard Day’s Night evolved from British New Wave, Help! from the British spy films, and Let It Be reinvented the rock documentary, Matteo argues. No “A Hard Day’s Night” or “Help!”, no “If I Fell” or “Ticket to Ride”, no “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” or “I Am the Walrus”, No “Get Back” and, if you can imagine, no “Let It Be”.įurthermore, Matteo takes readers on one hell of a journey into how the films are mold-breaking artistic achievements beyond merely exploitative movies of the Beatles’ success. Matteo hits the point home that without the five pictures the Beatles made together between 19, much of the band’s celebrated musical output wouldn’t exist. If you are as underwhelmed by the Beatles films, you might benefit from reading Steve Matteo’s Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film. Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be is a joyless, fly-on-the-wall affair save for the climactic rooftop concert that comes complete with entertainingly clueless police officers and bowler-hatted whingebags. George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine is an animated yawnfest of Blue Meanies that barely features the real Beatles. The Beatles-directed Magical Mystery Tour? Self-indulgent, sub-Monty Python surrealism by bus that remains unwatchable to this day, in color, on deluxe Blu-ray, or whichever way you like. Help!? Lester’s Monkees-style shenanigans involving a sinister Eastern cult and a sacrificial ring are an excuse for the Beatles to swan around in the Bahamas. Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night? That’s just zany, Goon Show-aping nonsense that laid the template for the Spice Girls’ Spice World in the 1990s (erm, thanks).
Some might say that compared to the songs, the movies are a pretty inconsequential part of the Beatles‘ legacy.
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