The Compleat Beatles, released in 1982, is a two-hour documentary, chronicling the career of the The Beatles. Though it has since been supplanted by the longer and more in-depth documentary Beatles Anthology, The Compleat Beatles was for many years largely regarded as the definitive film about the Beatles. The word "compleat" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the intentional misspelling of "Beetles".
Narrated by Malcolm McDowell, it includes extensive interviews with a number of sources close to the Beatles. Some of the people interviewed are producer George Martin, their first manager Allan Williams, Cavern Club DJ Bob Wooler, music writer Bill Harry, and musicians Gerry Marsden, Billy J. Kramer, Marianne Faithfull, Billy Preston, and Tony Sheridan. It also includes archival footage of interviews with members of The Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein. The film also includes early concert footage, behind-the-scenes background on the making of their albums, and candid footage of their often obsessed, hysterical fans.
Directed by Patrick Montgomery, the film was produced by Delilah Films/Electronic Arts Pictures and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists, with the first movie to use the "Turning UA Paperclip". It enjoyed a brief theatrical release in 1984.
Read more about The Compleat Beatles: Quotations From The Film, Narration in The Film
Famous quotes containing the words compleat and/or beatles:
“A hidden strength
Which if Heav’n gave it, may be term’d her own:
‘Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that, is clad in compleat steel,
And like a quiver’d Nymph with Arrows keen
May trace huge Forests, and unharbour’d Heaths,
Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes,
Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity,
No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer
Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.”
—John Lennon (1940–1980)