By Steve Matteo
After years of considering new book projects, I decided that it was time to write another book on the Beatles. My first book on the Beatles was Let It Be, part of the 33 1/3 series published by Bloomsbury. The subject of pop music and film always intrigued me, and obviously I touched on this subject with the Let It Be book, so choosing to write about the films of the Beatles seemed like a natural fit for my interests.
There hasn’t been a book that has concentrated on the five Beatles films for the general book trade in some time. Those books also didn’t include any of the rich vein of materials from the DVD and Blu-ray reissues of the films or the vinyl reissues (and lavish box set of the Let It Be album) of the soundtrack albums and related reissues. Having access to the Get Back project from Peter Jackson fleshed out the story of the Let It Be film in ways that were truly illuminating.
All of the films of the Beatles came out between 1964 and 1970. This was also a key period for British movies in general, so I knew that I wanted to provide context on British cinema of the period in the book. This would include the iconic spy movies of the era, most notably the James Bond films. There were also plenty of directors, actors, writers and others behind the scenes of not only the films of the Beatles, but of other British films and movies in general that I wanted to include in the book. Some of those people also worked on the films of the Beatles. There is also much musical and cultural context in the book.
I started the book before the pandemic, and due to how the virus affected various aspects of the world at large, it also impacted the entire process of the book, from the writing through its publication.
The hard deadline of the book changed twice. The book was originally conceived to be much shorter, but as I did my research and wrote and with the additional time added, the book ballooned to a final manuscript of nearly 500 pages. That manuscript was edited down to the nearly 350-page book that was published on May 15th in the U.S. and July 15th in the U.K. from Roman & Littlefield, through its Backbeat imprint.
The book has been warmly received by the Beatles community at large. Among my chief concerns were ensuring factual accuracy and creating a book that offered an expanded scope from that of previous volumes on the films of the Beatles. The feedback I have received so far makes me feel like I have succeeded.
I didn’t interview Paul or Ringo for the book. Given that the films were made in some cases nearly 60 years ago, there were many people I would have liked to have to talked to, but many are no longer with us and some have long since ceased doing interviews for a variety of reasons. Some of the people I did interview who worked on the films or with the Beatles or who could provide insight and context include Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Billy J. Kramer, Anthony Richmond, Cameron Crowe, Ralph Bakshi, Gered Mankowitz, John Kosh, Ryan White and Marijke Koger, among many others.
This is definitely a book for fans of the Beatles, but also for fans of the British films, music and cultural history of the time and place.