The television film called Magical Mystery Tour was devised,
written and
directed by The Beatles. It has a significant place
in the history of
The Beatles - not least, because it was viewed
by many as the group's
first failure.
Paul Gambaccini presents a programme revealing the story behind the
making of Magical Mystery Tour. The documentary also examines the
group's activities during 1967 before they spent most of the final four
months working on Magical Mystery Tour.
It was a momentous year. In February, The Beatles issued the single
Penny
Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever, accompanied by two adventurous and
surreal promotional films for those songs. On 1 June, their LP Sgt.
Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, which instantly received
critical
acclaim and huge sales. They performed All You Need Is Love on
the first
global TV show linking five continents by satellite.
They first met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the last week of August
1967.
While learning about Transcendental Meditation with him in North
Wales, they
received the shocking news of the sudden death of their
manager Brian Epstein.
Two weeks later they began filming Magical
Mystery Tour.
The programme features new interviews with Paul McCartney and
Ringo
Starr. John Lennon and George Harrison are represented
by rare archive
interviews recorded during the shooting and editing
of the film in
September and October 1967. Film directors Peter Fonda,
Terry Gilliam
and Martin Scorsese discuss Magical Mystery Tour and
there are comments
from many of those who worked on or
participated in the film.
