Beatlemania, 50 Years Later

Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years” demonstrates that the Beatles ca. 1964-66 were a pretty good live rock ’n’ roll band.

The evidence has long been buried in the sonic rubble produced by 80 bazillion screaming teenage girls, but thanks to the marvels of modern technology, the band is now audible.

It’s astonishing how tight they were, considering they could barely hear each other. Drummer Ringo Starr notes that he watched the other Beatles’ rear ends for clues as to where they were in a given song.

The documentary mixes news and concert footage with archival and modern interviews.

A particularly dramatic piece of footage shows the mostly male audience at a soccer stadium, packed in like swaying sardines, singing the words to “She Loves You” with the band way off in the aural background.

The selection of interviewees is a little odd. Old footage of the two deceased Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, makes sense. New interviews of Starr and Paul McCartney make sense.

Elvis Costello, a musician and accomplished songwriter, belongs on the roster. As does a woman who was present at a concert in Jacksonville, Fla., when the group refused to play if the audience was segregated.

A Florida news man, Larry Kane, offers the best perspective, in both the excerpts of his reports from the time and in retrospect.

But why do we need Eddie Izzard? For that matter, who is Eddie Izzard?

Whoopi Goldberg tells her story of going to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It would be a charming tale except she decides to swear. Her casual F-bomb falls flatter than Ringo trying to sing “Act Naturally” at Shea Stadium.

No matter. It’s tremendous fun watching the Beatles kid around with reporters and shake their mop tops while singing, “Whoo.”

By the way, Lennon was an underrated rhythm guitarist, and this film proves it.

By the time the group decided to quit touring, it wasn’t much fun. Beatlemania had an ugly side, and the film covers that angle.

Howard wisely avoids going into the weeds on the significance of it all, preferring to let the music and interviews do the talking.

Overall it’s a skillful job. I recommend it highly.

Attached to the film in the theater version is a restored version of the 1965 Shea Stadium show. It runs about 30 minutes and is worth sticking around for, even though it means a grand total of almost two and a half hours in the theater. Lennon’s channeling of Jerry Lee Lewis on the finale, “I’m Down,” is well worth seeing.