Beatles News

No one had too much hope for the Beatles' movie debut. Director Richard Lester was told to shoot quickly, to get it into theaters before the fab fad faded. And a worried United Artists wondered if maybe, for the American release, the boys' voices should be dubbed, to get rid of their accents.

"Look, if we can understand a bloody cowboy talking Texan, they can understand us talking Liverpool," the usually polite Paul McCartney snapped. (And he used a stronger word than "bloody.")

But, like the Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night" exceeded all expectations. Lester – a band favorite, as he'd directed their idol, Peter Sellers – gave the film a fun, frantic pace. And screenwriter Alun Owen, a fellow Liverpudlian, caught their distinct personas – rebellious John, nice Paul, serious George, sweet Ringo.

A smash, it was quickly followed up by the more gimmicky, less satisfying "Help!" – and, eventually, the charming cartoon, "Yellow Submarine." But there were other Beatles projects, too, some solo, many bizarre. A few, like Ringo's "Caveman" comedy, were even hits. Here are eight, though, you may have missed – but that any true Beatlemaniac will want to catch

How I Won the War (19 details

Apple Corps Ltd, the music company founded by members of The Beatles, was accused in a lawsuit on Monday of infringing copyrights of a company claiming to own a master recording of the group's famous 1965 concert in New York's Shea Stadium.

Sid Bernstein Presents LLC sued before this week's scheduled release in theaters and on Hulu of "Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years," a Ron Howard-directed documentary about Beatles concerts from the dawn of Beatlemania through 1966.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Sid Bernstein, who died in 2013, was a promoter who helped bring the Beatles to the United States from their native Britain. The complaint said he also helped stage the group's Aug. 15, 1965, performance at Shea, and arranged for TV variety show host Ed Sullivan's production company to film it.

But the plaintiff, which said it was assigned Bernstein's rights, said the group's manager, Brian Epstein, took custody of the "Master Tapes" and began using them without seeking consent. It said the recording was later used in the 1966 movie "The Beatles at Shea Stadium," the 1995 documentary "The Beatles Anthology," and the 201 details

It's time for “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” to come down on Sean Lennon's tree.

A Manhattan judge has ordered the musician to "remove as immediately as practicable" the 70-year-old Ailanthus tree that is rooted in his front yard but leaning into the stoop of his neighbors, the parents of actress Marisa Tomei. The Greenwich Village soap opera on West 13th St. has been broiling for years as the tree — leaning toward the sun to the west — has slowly twisted and dislodged the wrought iron handrail on the stoop of the Tomei townhouse. Unable for years to communicate directly with Lennon, who bought his townhouse in 2008 but only recently started to renovate, Gary Tomei, the actress' father, sued Lennon last year for $10 million.

Lennon's lawyer, Judith Goodman, said at a hearing this summer that Lennon was willing to pay for the damages but didn't want to remove the tree. His experts proposed to repair the Tomei stoop and handrail, but move the handrail to accommodate the tree's 24-inch trunk. Tomei's lawyer said that solution would cost his client more money because he would have to get approval from the city Landmarks Preservation Commission before moving the handrail. The entire neighborhood is details

They’ve been together longer than The Beatles were themselves, having survived and thrived for 22 years as Canada’s longest-running Fab Four tribute band.

According Sandy Vine, who is Paul McCartney on stage, that kind of staying power speaks volumes about what The Caverners offer audiences.

“They don’t keep you around if you stink,” he said with a laugh. “Originally, the show was meant to be a British Invasion show doing the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, that kind of thing. The fellows who came together for that audition sounded so much like The Beatles and had such affinity for the music, it immediately became apparent we needed to go in that direction.”

The Caverners will be one of the highlights of the upcoming London Beatles Festival scheduled for Sept. 23-25. Vine said being a tribute artist — a good one that captures the voice, look and mannerisms of the star — is tough enough. Then multiply that by four.

“Experience comes with performing a lot and the four of us have a neat chemistry in order to perform the parts the way they’re supposed to be performed,” he said. “It’s hard enough to get an Elvis i details

This Thursday, September 15th, at the Village East Theater, Stevie Van Zandt’s non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation (RRFF) will host the New York City premiere of Ron Howard’s The Beatles: Eight Days A Week-The Touring Years. Van Zandt’s foundation, which for several years running has been offering extensive educational materials free-of-charge to middle and high school teachers interested in taking their students on a historical exploration of popular music, will be launching a nationwide educational effort centered around the Beatles film. Just two days after the event, with Scholastic, Inc. as their partner and with the support of Apple Corps, the RRFF will make available their Eight Days a Week in the Classroom

materials at teachrock.org. Those new Beatles-themed materials will join over seventy preexisting multi-media lesson plans on the website; this will be the largest, most in-depth Beatles-related project to be integrated into American middle and high school education to date. The September 15th New York City premiere, held the day before the film opens in New York at IFC Center and in theaters across the country, will take place on the same day as the world premiere of the film in Lond details

Stella McCartney may be the daughter of world-famous Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney, but she has undoubtedly carved her own inimitable path in the world of fashion.

Having launched her eponymous label in April 2001 under the Gucci Group, the designer not only introduced her infamous tailoring to fashion critics but her committed animal rights support.

In celebration of her 45th birthday, we take a look back at her revolutionary designs, which undoubtedly changed the way fashion is consumed forever.

How Stella changed the mindset of the fashion masses

Having followed in the footsteps of her mother Linda McCartney, Stella (who practices vegetarianism) has woven her core values into each and every collection - refusing to use furs, leather and animal skins within the process. Other renowned fashion houses would have undoubtedly fallen at the early stages, often reliant upon the use of animal skins but Stella prevailed.

In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily, the designer recalled the beginnings of her career and the hardships that she faced in order to be taken seriously.“Yes, early in my career I was blatantly ridiculed for it. I always felt that leather and fur are the conventions details

As The Beatles' live shows return to the spotlight, Giles Martin, Jon Savage and others explain why the magical mystery tour goes on.

When The Beatles split up in 1970, John Lennon was typically scornful and dismissive. “People keep talking about it like it’s the end of the Earth,” he told an interviewer. “It’s nothing important – it’s only a rock group.”

Almost 50 years on from the split, The Beatles appear to have defied Lennon’s own brush-off, becoming bigger, and more important, than ever. The Fab Four may no longer occupy a central space in the music industry, yet they still loom larger than everything else, hovering over pop culture like omnipresent gods – the ultimate arbiter of artistic quality and commercial success.

There is the apparently unending stream of books, documentaries, photo exhibitions and repackaged music. Cynics may wonder whether it ever stops, what more there now is to say, to look at or hear. Such is the insatiable demand for Beatles product, the stuff keeps on coming anyway.

This month sees the release of The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, director Ron Howard’s look at the band&rsq details

Ron Howard wants to make a follow-up to his rock documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years.

The 62-year-old filmmaker has edited archive material, unearthed new footage of The Beatles in concert and even obtained unseen home movies from Paul McCartney to tell the story of the band's early touring years.

Howard says he was so taken with the subject he'd love to make another film about the history of the Fab Four. "I found this (making Eight Days A Week) to be so fascinating that I'd be very open to that," he tells British newspaper The Times.

"I found this (making Eight Days A Week) to be so fascinating that I'd be very open to that," he tells British newspaper The Times. The film is the first since the band's 1970 split to be authorised by McCartney, drummer Ringo Star, as well as the widows of late bandmembers George Harrison and John Lennon, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono.

It mainly examines the years when the iconic group performed live, from early gigs in the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England in 1962 until a final concert in Los Angeles' Candlestick Park in 1966.

Howard tells the newspaper he shied away from the darker aspects of the group's story, saying he did not details

On September 11, 1967, the Beatles undertook a fateful course—one that would humble them profoundly in the coming months: with the recent triumph of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the international simulcast performance of “All You Need Is Love” under their belts, they tried their hand, bizarre as it may seem in retrospect, at becoming film directors.

John Lennon, for one, recognized the dangerous waters that the Beatles had been trolling in since manager Brian Epstein’s untimely death only a few weeks earlier. As Lennon later remarked, “I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn’t really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. And I was scared.”

To Lennon’s credit, he understood intuitively that while their work as composers and their musicianship may have been unparalleled, such skills didn’t necessarily prepare them for making movies. But with Paul McCartney eager to see the Beatles make their mark in those post-Pepper, post-Epstein days, they amiably trudged on.

McCartney fashioned the idea for the group’s latest film project on traditional English day trips to the countryside. As McC details

No adjective can adequately convey how huge The Beatles already were on October 16, 1963, when director Richard Lester watched them arrive at London’s Playhouse Theatre and struggle good-naturedly through a fever-pitch crowd of teenage boys, screaming girls, reporters, photographers and news crews.

Inside, he saw them deal with a put-upon BBC radio producer and other clamorous claims on their attention with humour, command and a straightforward lack of pretension. These boys, he thought to himself, were naturals.

Film always interested The Beatles, and Lester was there at the audition to direct their first. ‘We were asked to sniff around each other, like dogs, to see whether we would get on,’ Lester recalls. ‘What came out was that we each knew the kind of film we didn’t want to make.’

A Hard Day’s Night was their first film for one reason: they said no to at least five others. Invitations started arriving in February or March 1963, and each was batted away. As Lennon explained in Melody Maker in June 1963, ‘We prefer to wait until we find a film with a good plot that will hold the interest. Otherwise it might do us more harm than good.’

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