Let It Be

The Sunday Movie: LET IT BE (1970)

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The Let It Be movie
is probably the most accessible Beatles DVD in the world, even though it has only been released for the home video market for a short while, and only in the USA.
Here's the timeline of events regarding the release of Let It Be for the home video market:

In 1981, the movie Let It Be was released to the home video market through 20th Century Fox and Magnetic Video Corporation. It was first issued on VHS and Betamax, next on laserdisc, and finally, RCA secured the rights to release it for their CED* (Capacitance Electronic Disc System) "Videodisc" format. The latter format failed miserably due to poor quality discs, which always skipped, and the players which had a very high failure rate. All of the issues of Let It Be went out of print within a couple of years.

On a personal note, I remember coming across a VHS cassette of Let It Be here in Oslo, Norway around 1981. It was in a video rental shop, but it always seemed to be out whenever I asked for it. One day it disappeared, and the owner of the store told me that one customer had paid a ridiculous sum of money for their copy.

The VHS video cassette
As the 80's went on, I managed to secure a video cassette taped from the final televised version in the UK of the film. The 80's went over into the nineties without anything happening.

In 1997 a UK company, "VCI", announced plans to issue the movie for the home video market for the first time in the UK. They claimed to have a version that was remastered in 1992 and that they would release it in 1997. It never happened. The century and the millennium passed, as the nineties became the 2000's.

In an interview with USA Today in March 2002, Paul McCartney told writer Edna Gunderson that a reissue of "Let It Be" seems to be finally moving forward. "We're cleaning up the film and going back to the original tape, before (producer) Phil Spector got hold of it," he said.

In April 2002, This Is London reported that Apple is on the verge of re-releasing "Let It Be" on video, though the article mistakenly says "for the first time." (which is true only outside the USA). Author Keith Badman told This Is London, "Apple has done an amazing job of cleaning up the picture quality. John and George hated the film, which is why it's been hidden away all these years. Lennon used to describe it as 'a project set up by Paul, for Paul'." There have been rumors through the years that it was George's dislike of the film that kept the film from being re-released. An Apple spokesman, asked about a possible re-release, said, "There has been no release date arranged. It is all up in the air and I can't say anything more at this stage".

Later on that month, McCartney talked to the Newark Star-Ledger about the film: "I happened to be on a plane about a year ago, and I met the director of the film, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and he said, "Every time I go into a video store in L.A., all the guys say, 'When are you going to release "Let It Be" (on video)?'" I said, "Isn't it out?" 'Cause you know, I don't know all that stuff. He said no. So I mentioned it to (a business associate), and I said, "You know what would be really cool? If we put the naked version of the record out as well." So that is actually getting worked on at the moment. It's not (officially) announced or anything yet, but that's what's in the pipeline."

After the release of the new "Let It Be...Naked" album, and no sight of the DVD, the film's director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg had this to say:
Q: So why wasn't a Let It Be DVD released alongside "Naked"?
Michael Lindsay-Hogg: The idea, as far as I know, is to put out two DVDs sometime in 2004, one of which will be the movie Let It Be with the print restored and the sound mixed to current standards. And then a companion DVD with interviews and extra material from anyone who had anything pertinent to say, one of them being myself.

Again, this didn't happen. In June 2004, details of a 3 disc 5.1 special edition of Let It Be was leaked to the internet, in the shape of this anonymous review, originally posted in the rec.music.beatles google group:

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I was lucky enough last week to accompany my brother to a special editing session for a new Let It Be promo DVD he was assembling in a Los Angeles editing suite last week (he didn't actually work on the forthcoming DVD release).
Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to spend several hours watching the nearly final product and combing through a bunch of production notes.
The film and features I watched were on a hard drive so I have no idea what the actual discs or the DVD packaging will look like, sorry. Some of the footage was still silent and not all of the options I clicked on worked, but here's a very rough preview. It's apparently not due until March 2005 so it may still change.

"LET IT BE" SE - DVD - EARLY EXCLUSIVE REPORT!!!!
A THREE disc 5.1 special edition" with extra features to be followed by a single "plain vanilla" disc 6 months later.

The special edition features all the original film footage that was used in the original 1970 theatrical release of Let It Be spread over the first 2 discs (Disc 1 is entitled Twickenham and Disc 2 Apple). Over 79 minutes in total of previously unseen footage has been added into both discs. An optional on-screen apple logo is available that pops up in the screen corner whenever "new" material appears, but there is no branching option that allows you to either select the new footage or the original footage.

The Octopus's Garden sequence has been almost doubled. Entirely new rehearsal sequences have been added for Something, I Lost My Little Girl, All Things Must Pass, She Came In Thru The Bathroom Window, Plain Yoko Jam, Fancy My Chances With You, Rock'n'Roll Music, Blues Aren't For Ringo, Isn't It A Pity and more. More footage of George Harrison.

Both discs apparently feature an audio commentary by The Beatles with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman (all culled from audio recordings made during the sessions). This didn't work yet on the demo.

The third disc features even more bonus material including:

AS NATURE INTENDED: 34 minute documentary on the Let It Be sessions, includes new interviews with George Martin, Billy Preston and Michael Lindsay Hogg, as well as archive interviews with John Lennon and George, Paul and Ringo interviews from the Anthology series (including a few snippets not seen before).

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: A collection of rare footage of The Beatles recording in the studio (none of this is "Let It Be" era material). The footage listed includes And I Love Her, Paperback Writer, Rain, All You Need Is Love, Hey Bulldog, Lady Madonna, Helter Skelter, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Blackbird, Tutti Frutti, Hey Jude (this track alone went for 20 minutes), St Louis Blues.

ACROSS TO ABBEY ROAD: The Abbey Road album tracks of Oh Darling, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, Something and Maxwell's Silver Hammer all matched up to footage from the Let It Be rehearsals to create brand new "video clips".

CHIMNEY SWEEP: Option didn't work - no details on notes.

BEHIND THE SHUTTERS: Option didn't work - no details on notes.

THE NAKED TRUTH: A featurette on the production of the Let it Be..Naked album including footage of Paul McCartney at a playback session. Ends with a new clip created for Across The Universe using Let It Be footage.

TRAILERS: Let It Be, The Beatles Anthology, Yellow Submarine, The First US Visit.

THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO: Option didn't work - no details on notes

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Unconfirmed rumours say that the above "review" was a hoax - someones wet dream about what the release could have been.

The Toronto Sun reported in 2005 that the "Let It Be" film was on its way to DVD that year. According to an interview with Bob Smeaton, who directed the "Beatles Anthology", the DVD was to be in 5.1 sound along with tons of lost and bonus features.

The following year, Smeaton told Archer of 99.5 The Mountain radio station in Denver, Colorado that the DVD release had been delayed due to the sheer volume of film stock shot, and colour restoration issues. He gave three possible release dates in September 2006. Nothing came of it.

In a February 2007 interview with Neil Aspinall regarding the remastering of the film for DVD release, he stated, "The film was so controversial when it first came out. When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: this stuff is still controversial. It raised a lot of old issues."

A year later, Yoko Ono told Bill DeYoung this, when he asked about a DVD release of the movie: "You know, life is a long time. And I hope you have a very long one, Bill."

In June 2008, plans for a DVD version of Let It Be were canceled at the request of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, according to The Daily Express UK newspaper. An unnamed source told the newspaper that while Paul and Ringo were planning to release it, both had second thoughts. The source goes on to say "The Beatles are still a massive global brand and it's felt it won't be helped if the public sees the darker side of the story. Neither Paul nor Ringo would feel comfortable publicizing a film showing The Beatles getting on each other's nerves."

Upon further investigation, it turned out that the two surviving Beatles members weren't as dismissive as the article implicated. So there's still hope...

Nonetheless, anyone can get their hands on a copy of the LET IT BE movie on DVD whenever they want to. The only thing Apple Corps gains by not releasing it, is peace during their board meetings. They lose the money that the sale of the DVD would have generated, and the bootleggers are taking all the profits. Our loss is a pristine print of the film. We have to do with the blown-up, grainy, cropped, monophonic version that was once a laser disc version, but now on DVD. Unless you can find the rarer 16mm version that was transferred to a semi illegal VHS release in Germany, complete with german subtitles. It will still be in mono, but the picture isn't as cropped.
So, how can I get my hands on a DVD of Let It Be, you ask?
Well, you can always find it as a torrent on the internet, you can do a search on ebay, and you can even find it on Amazon from time to time. Or you can just watch it here, courtesy of Google Video:

Meanwhile, there's a 4 disc version about to hit the street markets in Europe this summer, containing on discs 1-3: All available footage from the January 1969 sessions sorted chronologically and synched to it's proper soundtrack. Disc 4: Let It Be.