THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II [1976 / 2016] [DVD + 2 CD] [UK Release]
The Best Collection of The Beatles song covers in a film EVER!
Take a group of some of the most famous solo artists of the 1970s, which includes Helen Reddy, David Essex, Leo Sayer, Tina Turner, Frankie Laine, Bryan Ferry, Status Quo, Henry Gross, Jeff Lynne, Elton John, Bee Gees, Lynsey de Paul, Rod Stewart, The Four Seasons, Peter Gabriel, Frankie Valli, Richard Cocciante, Will Malone and Keith Moon and get them to sing cover versions of some of The Beatles most famous songs ever written and add a considerable amount of documentary footage of the Second World War telling the story of that epic encounter, and what do you have . . . ‘THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II’ sounds totally crazy. But what you experience is enormously entertaining and occasionally quite chilling and also a unique blend of music and film like no other and of that much we can be absolutely certain.
Director: Tony Palmer
Producer: Sandy Lieberson
Music and Lyrics: John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Composer: Lou Reizner
Cinematography: Anthony B. Richmond, B.S.C., A.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 480i
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: None
Running Time: 96 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1 x DVD and 2 x Compact Discs
Studio: Gonzo Multimedia
Andrew’s DVD Review: This wacky tribute film ‘THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II’ [aka ‘ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II’] features all of The Beatles songs, but features The Beatles songs sung instead by a diverse group of artists against a background of World War II images, and has been revamped and re-edited into this new 1976 film.
The film, directed by Tony Palmer, features many of the most famous groups and artists of the 1970s, including the Bee Gees, the Four Seasons, Elton John, Keith Moon, Tina Turner, Peter Gabriel, Helen Reddy, Frankie Valli and Jeff Lynne to name but a few singing their versions of The Beatles songs against a documentary and newsreel footage of the Second World War.
The 1976 film ‘THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II’ was the strangest mix of cinema and combining World War II images, via newsreels as well as Hollywood films made at that time, which featured the music of The Beatles, but not The Beatles original recordings, but cover versions that is featured by various artists, but critics declared the end result as disastrous. The original distributor junked the film so completely that no copies survived, and the film took on its iconic status and one I really loved when I viewed it in the cinema.
“Although the original 1976 film had disappeared, thanks to the indifference and stupidity of the original distributor,” said director Tony Palmer, “instinctively I felt the central idea, and the material, and of course the music, was just too good to be lost forever. So for those fans that have had to rely on a few very poor quality extracts on YouTube, the 2016 film is a completely new experience, much of it in HD and they have used some of the original tracks, but added a lot of new archive footage, some of them never seen before.
In addition, they have used totally different music and the film starts with Vaughan Williams, and ends with Shostakovich, taking in Sergei Rachmaninoff and including many famous people that were prominent around the period of the Second World War which includes Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Bernard Montgomery [Viscount Montgomery of Alamein], Bob Hope, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph P. Kennedy, Joseph Stalin, Humphrey Bogart, Milton Berle, Neville Chamberlain, Richard Burton, Winston Churchill and many others.
The film makes reference to war-torn Syria, but before that be prepared to see some really unsettling and shocking images at the end of World War Two, where we witness the news footage of all the starving and emancipated people in the concentration camps and all the emancipated dead people who were put in the mass graves. But equally shocking is all the shocking images of the conflict in Syria and the thoroughly shameful and belligerent attitude from the monstrous Syrian regime towards his own civilised people of Syria, especially with the consequences relating to all the death and destruction we get to view, which is so upsetting and heart breaking, especially the heart and soul of Syria and will make you extremely angry what you view of what horrible monsters can do to the casualties in any wars throughout civilizations past and present.
This film itself is a far more complex than the original ‘All This And World War II’ film, and I hope it will give everyone pause for thought about our troubled world in which we live. So sit back and enjoy a totally new experience of matching most of The Beatles brilliant music and songs, with the combination of equally brilliant film clips old and new to match The Beatles music and songs throughout this brilliant DVD video extravaganza. One thing I can assure you that when you view this unique musical film documentary, is that you will experience massive amounts of rollercoaster emotions, like joy and happiness, but equally lots of sadness, and especially you will view some horrendous newsreel film clips, that I know you will shed a great many tears and and outrage anger in what you view. But despite this, it is a totally brilliant concept of especially featuring The Beatles songs combined with the newsreel film clips, that fits so perfectly and a great job all round.
THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II MUSIC TRACK LIST
GREENSLEEVES (1585) [arrangement by Vaughan Williams]
THE FOOL ON THE HILL [Performed by Helen Reddy]
YESTERDAY [Performed by David Essex]
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD [Performed by Leo Sayer]
I AM THE WALRUS [Performed by Leo Sayer]
COME TOGETHER [Performed by Tina Turner]
SYMPHONY No.11 (Dmitri Shostakovich)
I AM THE WALRUS [Performed by Leo Sayer]
MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER [Performed by Frankie Laine]
SHE’S LEAVING HOME [Performed by Bryan Ferry]
LET IT BE [Performed by Leo Sayer]
GETTING BETTER [Performed by Status Quo]
HELP! [Performed by Henry Gross]
NOWHERE MAN [Performed by Jeff Lynne]
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS [Performed by Jeff Lynne]
ARMY AIR CORPS’ SONG (1917) [Robert MacArthur Crawford]
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS [Performed by Sir Elton John]
SHE CAME THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW [Performed by the Bee Gees]
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND [Performed by Jeff Lynne]
BECAUSE [Performed by Lynsey de Paul]
GET BACK [Performed by Rod Stewart]
NOWHERE MAN [Performed by Jeff Lynne]
WE CAN WORK IT OUT [Performed by The Four Seasons]
OTCHE NASH (Tchaikovsky) [Performed by St John Chrysostom Liturgy]
11th SYMPHONY (Dmitri Shostakovich)
A DAY IN THE LIFE [Performed by Frankie Valli]
MICHELLE [Performed by Richard Cocciante]
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD [Performed by Leo Sayer]
VICTORY MARCH (John Philip Sousa)
THE END [Performed by Will Malone]
WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR [Performed by Keith Moon]
GOLDEN SLUMBERS/CARRY THAT WEIGHT [Performed by the Bee Gees]
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER [Performed by Peter Gabriel]
HEY JUDE [Performed by The Brothers Johnson]
SYMPHONY No.4 (Dmitri Shostakovich)
FOOL ON THE HILL (Arrangement by Brouwer) [Performed by Guitarist John Williams]
DVD Image Quality – Gonzo Multimedia presents us with image quality that varies a great deal, from very grainy to good quality, but of course I suspect they were only able to source what was available at the time. What you view in mostly in black-and-white images, but now again you get some colour images that again vary in quality, but when you get the more modern colour images near the end of the film, they improve a great deal. So for a DVD it is the best you will ever experience and of course to have been able to upgrade all of the images to 1080i at least, they probably would have had to spend a lot more on the budget. While checking out information on this DVD, I read that you would experience HD quality image, well this not true, as with a DVD you do not get a high definition quality image, but because it was only released on the DVD format, you will of course only get the standard 480i image quality.
DVD Audio Quality – Gonzo Multimedia presents us with just one 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio experience. The audio quality of the newsreel inserts are very clear and precise, especially with the sound recordings feature in the Second World War scenes were not so advanced as to what you expect with modern day recordings, but when you hear The Beatles songs sung by the different Artists, the sound quality is really excellent and on par with a compact disc audio quality, that of course compensates for the 480i image quality you view.
Compact Disc Audio Quality – Gonzo Multimedia has given us two prestigious and stunning compact discs with presentations of The Beatles songs sung by different Artists. The quality is absolutely outstanding and you get to hear all the songs in the full, compared to how they break up the songs in the film. The orchestration by The London Symphony Orchestra and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the singing Artists are totally awesome and you get a real clarity, warmth and rich sounds that really show off the professional and beautiful production values of the whole package and the Artists really pay homage to The Beatles in their interpretations of their songs in a unique and special way. The only thing is that people have complained about the intrusion of the audio extracts at the start of some of the songs from the politicians, comedians and the Germans, but they only last for about 30 seconds to just over a minute, but of course the best aspect of these compact discs is the very professional song presentations that are so utterly brilliant, and of course they compensate for the audio intrusion in the film documentary. But one wonderful rare bonus is revealed on the second compact disc with track number eleven, where we get an audio recording of John Lennon talking about world peace and it was so great to hear his words of wisdom from one of main contributor to The Beatles, who is now sadly missed.
BONUS: Includes a wonderful colourful 12-page booklet that goes into great detail about the reboot of the original film ‘ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II’ that is very informative and has wonderful images of the artists that sings The Beatles songs and has an in-depth interview with Tony Palmer which adds a great deal to this wonderful DVD release.
Finally, ‘THE BEATLES AND WORLD WAR II’ is a weird and quirky wonderful film, where the 1976 musical documentary juxtaposes The Beatles songs, performed by a number of artists and musicians, with World War II newsreel footage and 20th Century Fox films from the 1940s onwards. But what is totally amazing is that if you listen to the words of The Beatles song with the particular newsreel images you view, the words match exactly what you are viewing perfectly and that is why this DVD is so magical. Sadly this musical documentary only lasted two weeks in cinemas, because people took the film too serious and didn’t get its hard hitting message. The original intention of the filmmakers was to use The Beatles actual music in the film, but instead the decision was to use other artists covering The Beatles music was made by the film's producers after they realised additional money could be made through a soundtrack album. The decision was a sound one, as the soundtrack Compact Disc actually generated more revenue than the film. The original film has sadly never been officially released on any home video format, but bootleg copies of the film were available at the time via several dedicated collector-to-collector resources. But now for the first time a high quality transfer is now available with this unofficial DVD release and is well worth the purchase and it brought back so many fond memories when I first viewed the music film documentary at the cinema, so well done Gonzo Multimedia in making someone very happy. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
