It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond

I was looking forward to this documentary as Netflix doesn't seem to have many in this series for musicians/artists. Such a disappointment to watch a story about one of the greatest albums WITHOUT any of the songs! Snooze fest..

This is one of those phony docs that cant get the rights to the music so they fill the time with news clips and interviews with old geezers you never heard of who now try to take the credit for making a classic album.

It's dismal and boring.

You can split this documentary into 3 parts (not necessarily of equal length):

1) "Why we don't want to tour anymore"

2) Sgt Pepper's

3) Brian Epstein and the Indian meditation guy

Don't expect to hear a single Beatles song in this film. Don't expect to hear a song of any kind in this film - this is a somewhat strange element to a music documentary and it suffers as a result. In saying that, I'm such a Beatles fan that I instantly hear each song in my head without having it actually played to me.

There are a lot of obscure people featured with interviews and anecdotes here - even poor Pete Best is briefly dragged out. At one point, some guy says unironically that "The Beatles had a lot of hangers-on" . That is probably an apt description of this documentary.

A lot of the people are so obscure that I did hear some things for the first time. Highlights included:

John changing the lyrics of 'Twist and Shout' when performing live to "I'm pissed with gout" (no one could hear him above the crowd screaming anyway).

And; Ringo frantically wanting someone to pack his entire suitcase full of baked beans and anti-diarrhea medication for their trip to India.

Overall, it was overlong, yet didn't delve into the making of the album (its actual subject) nearly enough. Far too much on Brian Epstein and random anecdote filler. The whole thing had the vibe of a 1 hour TV special. Just go listen to the album instead.

Why making a doc regarding a music album (one of the best known in music history) without having the music? This film about The Fab Four must cope with this lack and the outcome is disappointing, totally. With no access to songs and films of them in the studio, the result isn't pretty, given that the stories have been told, written and explained million of times. Things thus standing a much shorter footage might have been enough. On the other hand that's the 50th anniversary and another movie had to be expected after the Ron Howard's one but this one is only for Beatlemaniacs.. overlong also the finale devoted to Brian Epstein's death.

10/13/17. We are talking about one of Rock's greatest LP of all time, and this documentary doesn't even play any of it? Fifty years ago today? The legacy is in the music itself, not all this gibberish! A discussion of the inspiration for the songs that were on the LP would have been a lot more interesting to listen to and add to the enjoyment of the music than the reminiscing of - who are these people??? Don't even bother with this one, just listen to the LP - really.