Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Good Ol' Freda Blu-ray Movie Review

They Saw Her Standing There

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 6, 2013

What is there left to say about the Beatles, almost fifty years since their historic TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which officially launched Beatlemania in the U.S.? After all the press coverage, the interviews, the albums and concerts, the TV appearances, the films, the biographies, histories, bio-pics, documentaries and tell-all books, hasn't everything been said?

The answer turns out to be no, and the new stories come from an unlikely source who has been hiding in plain sight for years. Freda Kelly was a teenager from Liverpool and an early fan when the Beatles were an unknown band playing the dank club called the Cavern (and the drummer was a fellow named Pete Best). Purely by chance, Freda was plucked from the crowd and handed what became every girl's fantasy job: secretary to the Beatles, head of their official fan club and, as time went on, buffer and gatekeeper to their privacy, which Freda guarded with the loyalty of a family member. She might as well have been one. In one of the deleted scenes, she recounts a private party following the premiere of John Lennon's early acting foray, How I Won the War, where only the inner circle was invited: the Beatles, their wives, their parents, their manager Brian Epstein—and, of course, Freda.

When the band broke up in 1970, Freda's discretion continued. Instead of cashing in by selling memorabilia (of which she'd acquired a huge collection) and spilling secrets, she packed up what she could and retreated to private life, raising two children and gradually letting everyone around her forget that she was ever anything but a working mother. Every so often, though, a clip of the Beatles on TV would jog her memory, and she would say a few words. Her son, Timothy, would ask for more information, but his mother never wanted to talk about it. Then Timothy died young, and she regretted holding back.

When she became a grandmother, Freda Kelly decided it was time to "get the story down". She didn't want want her daughter's son Niall to remember his "gran" as just an old lady with gray hair sitting in the corner. So she contacted a family friend, documentary film producer and director Ryan White, nephew of Billy Kinsley of the Merseybeats, another band that played the Cavern when the Beatles were coming up. Even White didn't know about Freda's past. She'd kept it so quiet that, according to White, 95% of the movie was news to Freda's own daughter.

The 87 minutes of Good Ol' Freda have been culled from almost 50 hours of interview footage, and it includes many never-before-seen photographs of the Beatles and those close to them. It is also the first documentary to obtain a license to use original Beatles songs, a grant that Freda was instrumental in securing.

The film opens with another rarity: the 1963 Christmas message greeting that the Beatles recorded for members of their fan club. During the course of the record, Harrison offers a special thanks to their secretary, which Lennon echoes with a shout of "Good Ol' Freda!", to which the rest of the group joins in. The recording provided the film's title and, as White observes on the commentary, he would have missed out on a great lead-in if he couldn't have obtained the rights. To this day, however, Freda Kelly is so highly regarded within the current incarnation of Apple Corps. that doors opened for him which would have remained closed to other filmmakers.

Most of the film is told in Freda's voice from her interviews with White, many of which were conducted in the living room of her modest present-day home. In key scenes, White's camera accompanies her to the attic, where she breaks open boxes of memorabilia and photos unopened for years and you can literally see the memories emerge. In other scenes, White accompanies Freda to important locations that still exist. The Cavern is long gone, but the house where Ringo's parents lived (Freda always calls him "Richie") still stands, and Freda speaks with great affection of the Starkeys, especially Elsie, who treated her like a daughter. The Empire Theatre, scene of the Beatles' appearance with Little Richard, remains, and Freda stands on the stage and recalls watching her "lads" perform. And she revisits the Liverpool Town Hall, where the Beatles' hometown gave them a grand civic reception after they returned from conquering America, and Freda recalls joining the group on the balcony overlooking the streets filled with hundreds of thousands of cheering, screaming citizens, many of them teenagers like herself—and there she was with the band.

For variety, White supplements Freda's recollections about the Beatles with those of a few participants who recall Freda (although, as Freda notes in one of the rare moments when she lets emotion show through her cheerful demeanor, so many of the old gang are gone). White's uncle, Billy Kinsley, came out of retirement to participate. Tony Barrow, the Beatles' press officer in their early days (he is credited with coining the phrase "the Fab Four") recalls Freda with all the affection of a PR man who was happy just to have someone who could be trusted for her discretion. Angie McCartney, Paul's stepmother, is the last surviving Beatle relative who knew Freda. Her daughter, Rachel, contributes a few wry observations. Billy Hatton and Joey Bower, aging members of The Fourmost, another Merseybeat band, share recollections of Freda's presence on the scene.

But it's Freda herself who remains the central voice. Having held onto these memories for so many years, she turns out to be a terrific storyteller: funny, detailed, self-deprecating and scrupulously accurate. (White has said in interviews that, if Freda was unsure of her factual recollection, she wouldn't allow a story to be used.) No one could spin the tale better than Freda of the time the mercurial Lennon tried to fire her, because she'd been spending too much time chatting backstage with the members of the Moody Blues. As big a fan as she was, Freda never regarded the Beatles as anything other than fellow Liverpuddlians with whom she was sharing a great adventure, and she shot back at Lennon: "Well, I won't answer your mail anymore. I'll just answer theirs"—gesturing at Paul, George and Ringo. In short order, she had Lennon down on one knee begging her forgiveness.

White has filled out the film's visuals with hundreds of rare photographs, many of them never seen before and from high quality prints. The photos, like the film, concentrate on the Beatles' early years, when, as Freda repeatedly suggests, the success of the Beatles was more of a fun, youthful adventure. When their manager, Brian Epstein, moved the operation to London, Freda stayed behind in Liverpool for family reasons. After Epstein died in August 1967, in what has long been rumored to be a suicide (which Freda steadfastly disputes), the group began to fragment. Freda remained their secretary beyond the breakup, answering every last piece of fan mail and finishing the final fan newsletter, conspicuously omitting her trademark "Tarrah for now", because there wouldn't be another. Then she want on to live a quiet life out of the public eye—until today.

Good Ol' Freda Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Good Ol' Freda is the first feature shot by Austin Hargreave. The film was financed by a Kickstarter campaign and shot digitally. The image on Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has presumably been sourced directly from digital files. It's a clean, sharp and noise-free image that brings out all the detail in the source, whatever that may be. Archival news footage looks rough, but the contemporary interviews and many of the photos still look splendid, and director White and his editor have resisted the temptation to dress up the stills with digital trickery other than pans and zooms. Colors for the interview sequences appear to be natural.

The average bitrate of 18.00 Mbps would be low for a dramatic film, but for an 87-minute documentary with so many still images, it seems reasonable. In any case, there were no visible artifacts.

Good Ol' Freda Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is clear and efficient, unless your ear has trouble adjusting to Freda Kelly's Liverpool accent, which isn't particularly thick. As with most documentaries, this is a basic, front-oriented mix in which voices predominate. Background music sets the tone, and White's music supervisor, Matt Lilley, has assembled a great soundtrack consisting of four original Beatles' songs, plus original versions of songs covered by the Beatles, including "Twist and Shout", "I'm Ready", "Honey Don't", "Boys" and "Long Tall Sally". These are routed to the left and right fronts, with support from the surrounds, to establish a period environment that ably supports White's visuals.

Good Ol' Freda Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Freda Kelly and Directory Ryan White: Although much of the amiable conversation between the director and his "star" covers the same subjects as the film, there are important enhancements. They speak at some length about obtaining the rights to the Beatles songs on the soundtrack, as well as the Christmas recording that opens the film. Freda also reveals some of her favorite songs from the early days at the Cavern, and White makes one more attempt (unsuccessfully) to get her to admit that she dated members of the group. White also identifies where scenes were cut for running time, with the largest number of trims occurring in the sequence about the Magical Mystery Tour, a project that Freda still can't bring herself to take seriously.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 12:36): All of these scenes are interesting and worthwhile, although it's easy to see why there were not included. The "Wedding" scene provides a more detailed account of Freda's own wedding than she gives on the commentary track.
• Receptionist
• "Juke Box Jury"
• How I Won the War
• Wedding
• 1980



• Screening Q&A with Freda Kelly—The Fest for Beatles Fans (1080p; 1.78:1; 22:44): A memorable encounter between the ultimate Beatle insider and an audience of diehard Beatle fans.



• Interview with Director Ryan White (1080i; 1.78:1; 11:17): White describes how the project came to him and how it evolved.



• Photo Gallery (1080p): Eleven photos, with captions.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:31).



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, Muscle Shoals, Touchy Feely and Prince Avalanche, as well as a promo for AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check back later for updates".

Good Ol' Freda Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In a world obsessed with fame and fortune, Freda Kelly is an anomaly, a throwback to an earlier age when people didn't automatically seek the spotlight and thought there was more to life than money. At seventeen, she discovered a local band that played music she loved, became a regular at their performances, and got the chance to accompany them on the fast track to stardom. Some critics were disappointed that Good Ol' Freda didn't spill new secrets about the Beatles, but they may have missed the film's most obvious revelation. The key to Freda's longevity with the Beatles and their families, and to the esteem she still commands, is that she never took either herself or Beatlemania too seriously. For her, these were four youngsters from Liverpool like herself, who just happened to be doing something wonderful. When her part in the thing was done, she went back to what she was before: a regular person, who now had a family. Try to imagine the rarity of someone like that to people strapped to the rocket that propelled Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr during those heady years. To have someone in the inner circle who was both fan and friend, who knew you when and took care of you now, who was loyal without question but also wouldn't brook any diva nonsense, because she knew where you came from—that's not someone a star finds every day. That's why the Beatles held onto Good Ol' Freda for as long as they could. Highly recommended.