Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 30, 2016

The tagline for The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years states: The band you know. The story you don’t. The first part of that statement is of course inarguable—who among the living with any interest in pop and rock music hasn’t had at least some exposure to the Fab Four? That very exposure, though, puts the lie to the second part of this marketing formulation, for my hunch is even casual fans of The Beatles won’t find much new, let alone revelatory, information in this genial but kind of by the numbers documentary from Ron Howard. Those of us who grew up with The Beatles may exult in the wonderful assemblage of live performance footage that Howard has put together, not to mention brief but ingratiating contemporary interview snippets with surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with some equally brief but occasionally incisive archival interviews with John Lennon and George Harrison, but in terms of an “unknown” story—well, with a band as iconic as The Beatles, what more is there really to know at this point?

While the outlines of the “story” are probably already firmly etched in many Beatlemaniacs’ minds, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years does provide some interest in the details. One of the illuminating tidbits comes courtesy of Ringo, who states that the group had signed one of the worst deals imaginable for their recorded output, which meant that despite regularly topping the charts throughout their relatively brief but astonishing recording career, the quartet made some of their biggest bucks by performing live, helping to usher in what would ultiimately become known as the arena rock era. In fact, both Starr and McCartney mention how despite the fact that virtually no one could actually hear them at these stadium venues (and as they discuss, they couldn’t hear themselves at times due to completely inadequate PAs and a lack of monitors), the moolah was simply too lucrative to pass up.

Another interesting sidebar, and one that Howard seems to want to emphasize, is a whole “race relations” aspect that may in fact surprise some not up to speed in Beatles arcana. Talking heads like Whoopi Goldberg (whose mother surprised her with impossible to get tickets for the Beatles’ infamous Shea Stadium concert) and historian Kitty Oliver discuss what it was like to be an African American suddenly “sharing” fandom with whites. Even more to the point is some arresting data documenting how The Beatles’ performing contracts during what was already a fractious “Civil Rights” era specifically stated they would not appear before segregated audiences.

While there’s nothing very objectionable about The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years, one of the things that perplexed me was the time given to some kind of oddball talking head choices (like Eddie Izzard), when relatively short shrift is given to both McCartney and Starr courtesy of contemporary sequences, as well as Harrison and Lennon courtesy of some at times rather interesting (and to me, anyway, lesser seen) archival interview segments. There are some inarguably fun sidebars here in terms of some of the talking heads, as in a brief but touching reminiscence by Sigourney Weaver which also features some archival footage of her as a young girl at one of the live performances. The more or less straight ahead chronology offers tons of opportunity for some great archival stills and footage, but the meat of this piece should be in the reminiscences of those who experienced it at the time, and in that regard this documentary at times seems more interested in some admittedly compelling paraphernalia (so to speak) than in really getting to any in depth “new” information. That again seems to point out the fact that the second half of that aforementioned tag line is probably a bit of wishful thinking.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Capitol Records and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.78:1 (much of the archival material has been blown up to fill a 1.78:1 frame, but there are a couple of exceptions both in terms of other aspect ratios which can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review). This documentary has the expected patchwork quilt appearance that always comes from efforts like these which are cobbled together from such widely variant source elements. The contemporary interviews segments look decently sharp, even if the palette is not especially vivid, while the archival footage varies from acceptable to pretty ragged looking. Some of the older source material is pretty fuzzy looking, and what appears to be 16mm elements blown up for this presentation offer an expected gritty and grainy appearance. The archival stills generally look excellent sharp, and consistent contrast and solid blacks help to elevate the black and white material in terms of both stills and video.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years features LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks. While the surround track offers at least a little more separation and space in the performance snippets, many of these feature such overwhelming audience screaming that I personally preferred the stereo track, since I felt the music was at least a bit better prioritized in that version. Otherwise, there's not much to separate these tracks since the bulk of the rest of the piece is simply talking heads. Fidelity is fine, with an understanding that some of the live performance footage was recorded under less than optimal conditions.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This 2 Disc Special Edition contains the feature documentary on Disc 1. Disc 2 contains the following supplementary material:

• The Beatles - Words and Music (1080p; 24:13) is an agreeable enough piece featuring more interviews from the likes of Sir Paul and Howard Goodall, all coming to the remarkable conclusion that Lennon and McCartney were pretty good songwriters.


• Early Clues to a New Direction (1080p; 17:55) gets into the some of the earliest history of how Lennon, McCartney and Harrison got to know each other and the first days of the group. Ringo of course is also on hand (including in some contemporary interviews).


• The Beatles Live 1963 - 1965

  She Loves You, ABC Cinema, Manchester, November 20, 1963 (1080p; 2:24)

  Twist and Shout, ABC Cinema, Manchester, November 20, 1963 (1080p; 1:27)

  Can't Buy Me Love, NME Music Awards, Empire Pool, London, April 26, 1964 (1080p; 2:21)

  You Can't Do That, Festival Hall, Melbourne, June 17, 1964 (1080p; 2:44)

  Help!, ABC Theatre, Blackpool, 1965 (1080p; 3:04)

• A Deeper Dive is comprised of additional footage and interviews focusing on various subjects:

  Liverpool (1080p; 11:42)

  Three Beatles' Fans (1080p; 8:21)

  Ronnie Spector and the Beatles (1080p; 4:03)

  Shooting "A Hard Day's Night" (1080p; 5:54)

  The Beatles in Australia (1080p; 4:18)

  Recollections of Shea Stadium (1080p; 3:44)

  The Beatles in Japan (1080p; 5:13)

• An Alternative Opening for the Film (1080p; 3:07)

Additionally, this Special Edition comes with a nice sized booklet which includes some good essays (including one by Ron Howard) and lots of great stills.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For those interested in saving a few bucks, there's a one disc version of The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years available that evidently omits both the second disc of special features and the booklet. That said, if you're even a passably well informed Beatles fan, it's the supplemental material that is really the selling point here, since the documentary, while consistently interesting, is hardly revelatory in the information it imparts. Technical merits are generally strong (with an understanding of expected hurdles some of the archival performance footage inherently come burdened with), and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years comes Recommended.