Customer Reviews

The Beatles DVD Collector's Set

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With the "A Hard Day's Night" DVD currently out of print, Bealtes fans have had to make due with the DVDs presented in this dubious "Collector's Set." All are available separately, so save you dollars! As much as I love the group, I see little reason to own "Magical Mystery Tour" on DVD. The "documentary" of the making of AHDN isn't bad, but my VHS copy will suffice. Which leaves "Help!" and "...Their First US Visit." Personally, I'm holding out for the deluxe editions of the feature films. Hello Criterion? You did a nice laser disc of AHDN, where's the DVD? And how about a proper "making of" documentary, with more Lester and less Phil Collins? "Help!" is a great film, but would also benefit from similar additional first-hand recollections. Which leaves "The Beatles: Their First US Visit." Of this foursome (pending the arrival of an expanded "Help!" DVD), this is the only true must-have disc: a cinema verite look at Beatlemania from the boys' perspectives (...a car, a room, a car, a room...), beautifully observed by the Maysles brothers in 1964. The Ed Sullivan show bits are wonderful, but my favorite moment is John noodling on the melodica, playing what you'll recognize as the intro to "Strawberry Fields Forever." This documentary is a rare, amazing glimpse into a world we'll never see again. I'm saving my money for the Anthology DVDs slated for late 2000/early 2001.

I had no idea I was so lucky to have a DVD copy of Hard Day's Night.
This is just another repackaging of stuff already released. Most
Beatle fans know too much about that.

As for the individual titles,
Help is an excellent movie. The big buget sequel to A Hard Day's
Night.

Magical Mystery Tour is really, really sad. When it was
released origially for TV in Britian it was supposed to air twice but
after poor ratings was not rerun. It was only run on American TV once
in black and white. The one good thing about Magical Mystery Tour is
that it was digitally restored from the original film stock and the
soundtrack was remastered in digital stereo. I had a copy of Magical
Mystery Tour released in the 80's by Media Home Entertainment, and it
was pretty much bootleg quality.

The First U.S. Visit is an
excellent documentary. It begins with the Beatles landing at JFK
airport for their fist U.S. Tour. Then they are off for their first
appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. It has footage from their first
live concert in America in Washington D.C. It then follows them on
the historic train ride to Miami for their second appearance on the Ed
Sullivan Show. One of the best sequences is on the train when John
and Paul are very tired of mugging for the cameras but George is going
crazy. Little did they know at the time that they would be under the
microscope from then on!!

The making of Hard Day's Night is just ok.
Like someone else said, "less Phil Collins, more
info..."

I need to see Let It Be on DVD and the making of Let
It Be. Let It be is over two weeks of informal jamming boiled down to
about an hour and a half.

Bottom line is buy this release if you
don't have any of the titles in it. It makes a fair starter
collection of Beatle DVDs.

Add mine to the list of Beatlemaniacs underwhlemed by the selections in this set. (Consider my rating an average of five stars for the films and one star for this box itself.)

Like pbfey, despite my fanaticism, I see no need to own 'MMT' on disc until somebody cleans up the video further and makes a "What the heck were they thinking?" making-of featurette to go with it. (Cue Ringo: "Yeah, it sooked, but Brian was gone, and we were all so wasted...") I already have 'AHDN' on DVD (thanks to eBay), as well as 'Help!' And when 'AHDN' is finally back in print, folding in the 'You Can't Do That!' making-of would be the egalitarian thing to do.

I hope you're right about the 'Anthology' coming to DVD by early '01, pbfey, but you know what I'm really hankering for? The modest 1982 MGM documentary 'The Compleat Beatles.' This PBS pledge-drive staple is, at two hours, the tightest, most all-around entertaining Fabs documentary ever -- a much easier watch than the essential but bloated 'Anthology.' (Many a rainy day at home has been rejuvenated by my umpteenth watching of 'Compleat.') It's now completely out of print, even on VHS, so I must continue to rely on my mossy tape copy. Crazy as this sounds, I'd take a DVD of that little flick over almost anything else Beatles-related at this point. But I suspect it's not an MGM or an MPI priority, so I'm not holding my breath.

I became a Beatle fan thanks to my mother. She had told me for years how good the movie "Help!" was. Finally, she found the DVD and bought it.

I was an instant fan!

Help!, one of the DVD's included in this set is a thoroughly delightful movie with a fantastic soundtrack. Anyone with a love for British comedy will also love this movie.

Also included with this set is Magical Mystery Tour, You Can't Do That!: The Making of A Hard Day's Night and The Beatles: The First US Visit. All three, combined with Help!, are well worth the cost of this four DVD set.

MPI Video who held the rights to the Beatles DVD's stopped selling them as of January 1, 2001. That is such a sad thing because there is so much entertainment contained in this set and in all Beatles movies.

I highly recommend searching for this title through online auctions or other avenues.

You will not be disappointed with The Ultimate Collection!!

Speaking as someone who already owns three of these titles on DVD, this box set makes no sense at all. "A Hard Day's Night" would be the only reason to buy it, and it's missing. Surely it will be available again, as will "Let It Be" I hope, so I will wait till they assemble ALL the Beatles movies before buying a set of them.

Until A Hard Day's Night and Anthology are released in DVD, this, along with the remastered Yellow Submarine DVD, is basically it. You can save money by buying the packaged product. The First US Visit is like traveling in a time machine. Note how George is the only one who looks into the camera and mugs for it on the Sullivan Show debut. As far as I can tell, all the Sullivan appearances are on here.

Help! is essential for the true Beatles fan & collector. Making of AHDN is loads of fun, as well. A nice preview for the upcoming release of that cinematic classic this fall. Yes, Mystery Tour is tough to watch, though the Walrus Video established an MTV type years later. Love to have Let It Be out on DVD, as well, but no signs of that just yet.

The two documentaries,one about the Beatles first US visit and one about the making of A Hard Days Night turned out to be more interesting than the disappointing Magical Mystery Tour movie and equally poor "Help" movie.
Hopefully one day the actual movie "A Hard Days Night" will be released along with the Anthology DVD and others.AHDN was withdrawn from DVD for some absurd reason,apparently to do with the movies cinema re-release a few years back,and the powers that be have not put it back into DVD release.
It is absurd that so little Beatles product is available.
Despite the Anthology DVD set being promised in 2001,that did not happen and we are still waiting.
There is no "A Hard Days Night" DVD,no "Compleat Beatles" DVD,none of the Beatles UK TV performances on "Go" which is available on video,and what happened to Paul McCartney's eccellent 1993 world tour movie which was available on computer disc in 1998 but not on DVD?
The Beatles company handling DVD releases is doing a very poor job.

Great DVD documentary of the Fabs but was disappointed to find that the song You Can't Do That was not on the disc although it was clearly listed. I'm glad I still have my VHS copy. I hope they get these details right in the future.

The first movie I watched out of this set was "Help!" and I was very, very impressed with the quality of the digital restoration work that was done on this movie. And "Help!" is the best Beatles movie anyway. Packing "Magical Mystery Tour" along with it strikes me as a questionable choice, especially when we also have a documentary about the making of "A hard day's night" - so why wasn't that movie included? And MMT is clearly the weakest of all the Beatles films. The documentaries are interesting and do have their moments, but some of the editing, the interrupted interview style is a bit irritating. The packaging of the whole set strikes me as a bit cheap and one would have wished for a nicer box and a good set of liner notes - this after all wants to be a collector's set! Having been a Beatles fan for a while I am getting a bit tired of the medium-quality repackaging of previously released material. More quality, less quantity, please!

Only the first pressing of this DVD was missing "You Can't Do That".

Later pressings have the outtake as described in the description.