Product Details

• Actors: The Beatles, Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney
• Directors: Michael Lindsay-Hogg
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Magnetic Video - CBS Fox
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000192Y3G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,796 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

A highlight of the film (other than the music) is a performance of the group on the roof of their Apple Corps headquarters on Saville Row on January 30, 1969 which turned out to be their last together. The police interrupting the performance and the shots of the crowds on the street and nearby rooftops are oft-repeated elements still in use in music video and concert films today.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Beatles' swan song, December 14, 2001

By 

C.H. (Beach Park, IL) - See all my reviews

Before pulling it together for "Abbey Road" later that year, The Beatles limped through sessions for "Get Back", which would finally be released as "Let It Be" in 1970 with a little help from Phil Spector. John was more or less pleased with the end result - "When I heard it I didn't puke" - but Paul was said to have been horrified by the chorus of female voices on "The Long and Winding Road". The recording sessions seem to be less than pleasurable; Paul lectures George on how to play guitar and George snaps back while John merely glares when Paul starts in on him. Ringo sits off on the periphery during these tense moments. It's not all sour apples, though. There's some laughter and cheerful jamming in the studio, and the finale is the riveting concert on the roof of Apple that brings the town to a standstill. Distribution of this film has been slim to none over the past twenty years, so let's hope for a DVD release soon!

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paul, if you're reading this..., June 15, 2004

By A Customer

This film is of tremendous historical value, and quite entertaining as well. The rooftop concert is so much fun, and is The Beatles last live performance! Paul, if you are reading this, please do all of us fans a favor. As a bonus to the Let It Be release, why not show the entire rooftop concert without the edits of crowd reactions, just as the studio versions were shown in their entirety? It's the last Beatle performance, and deserves to be shown complete. Give the greatest band in history their due.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans, August 9, 2002

By 

Junglies (Morrisville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Let it Be is the story of how four men, mostly friends from their teens, grew apart from each other but who were so close that they did not know how to deal with it.

You have to wonder why it was that they never spilt before they did really. Given the enormous strain that they must have been under as the icons of a generation with people expecting them to perform miracles, with no private life, where some people were trying to take them for every penny with few people that they could trust...well.

Let It be is ostensibly the story of music in the making and while there is music, or scraps of it aplenty, the action is on the five main characters who dominate throughout. Most attention is foccussed on John and Paul and Yoko and the viewer is pummelled by the raw and powerful and mostly simmering emotions between these people. George and Ringo get pulled into the middle on occassion and are seen to withdraw to lick their wounds.

This is a story of a popular, innovative, experimental, highly successful group in decay. Caught up in an artificial hothouse existance with no outside personality strong enough to tell them to grow up, make up and move on. The musical prowess of these individuals is still there for all to see and their obvious joy of playing together in a live situation when on the Apple roof demonstrates what a powerful musical force they were. Awesome.

Let It Be is a warts and all movie. It makes me sad because all of these years later with first, John and more recently, George, both no longer with us Paul McCartney still harbours ill will for Yoko Ono which often is shown by public humiliation. Many see this movie as showing a side of the Beatles to the world that they would rather not show. In my view this movie shows that the Beatles were not gods but human like the rest of us with real feelings and passions. It shows them as being natural not manufactured and making music about life through living life as fully as they could.

There are many individual moments throught this movie which moved me, which brought me to tears, which made me laugh, which made me sigh. Best of all was the roof but there are magical moments throughout. For anyone who lived in the Beatles and post-Beatles era it is a remarkable record of four remarkable men and some of the other unsung remarkable people around them in the craziness. As John Lennon said, 'Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans'.

Too true.