THE UNSEEN BEATLES

For hardcore fans only, this scrappy (as in scrapped together) doc provides few new peeks at the Fab Four.

Sometimes I think it must be strange to be a mega-celebrity with longevity, like Paul McCartney, and live long enough to see scratchy, blurry home movies from your long-ago youth dug up and compiled and obessessed over by your fans. Such is the case of The Unseen Beatles, a made-for-TV doc by the BBC which compiles supposedly rare and unseen footage from roughly the 1962-1966 years of the Fab Four's climb to fame.

Interspersed with modern interviews by journalists, roadies, and even opening bands from the era, we hear anecdotes about how the boys from Liverpool, England presented a pop-star image unlike any seen before. These boys had difference personalities, they had opinions that they weren't afraid to share, they were irreverant and frankly often obnoxious. Journalists were as enamored of The Beatles as their screaming fans, as they had never met celebrities quite like them.

The Unseen Beatles is full of stories about the amateurish concert tours (which it is stated over and over were a precursor to the modern stadium rock tour), as well as the occasional danger that was a result of this cluelessness (performing with electrical instruments in a rainstorm because the host refused to provide a cover for the stage; one of their hastily-arranged tour jets suddenly having an engine burst into flame while in flight; etc.). Intriguing are the tales of the death threats that followed them in Japan (due to their choice of concert venue), and their heckling by the Filipinos (due to their unconcious dissing of a party hosted by Imelda Marcos). And of course there is John's "bigger than Jesus" comment that didn't bode well on their third and final tour of the United States.

A 15-year old fan provided the only known footage of The Beatles last tour-concert ever, in San Francisco's Candlestick Park in August of 1966. The shots show the roadies dragging equipment across the huge baseball lawn (the stadium didn't want them to mess up the grass with carts or cars), as well as the assembling of the sparse and kind of lonely stage out in the middle of the field. Everyone seems jaded and exhausted. When that show finished, it was clear, to the band at least, that they were done with touring.

Admittedly, you are going to find better and more thorough Beatles biography footage and films elsewhere. As intriguing as these random home movies and rare interviews are, they are for fans only, and don't provide enough of a bigger picture of the band to be of interest to anyone else. When the soundtrack of the doc doesn't even contain actual Beatles songs, but is instead filled by generic 60s surf-pop jingles, you know that they did what they could with the scraps of new stuff that they found. It's a fun peek at some new footage, but not crucial to anyone except the most hardcore fans.