DECONSTRUCTING THE BEATLES: MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR Screening at The Tivoli January 29th

DECONSTRUCTING THE BEATLES: MAGICAL MYSTERY  will be screening at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater ( 6350 Delmar in The Loop) one-time only, Tuesday, January 29th at 7pm. Ticket information can be found HERE.  DECONSTRUCTING THE BEATLES: MAGICAL MYSTERY explores the music written for the Magical Mystery Tour TV show, as well as the additional songs that appeared on the 1967 LP.

In 1967, The Beatles embarked on an ambitious project, writing and directing a one-hour film, Magical Mystery Tour.  The music written for the film is some of The Beatles’ psychedelic best. In Deconstructing The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, Mr. Freiman delves into the creative process behind “The Fool On The Hill,” “Blue Jay Way,” “I Am The Walrus,” and other selections from Magical Mystery Tour.  Scott will also “deconstruct” other songs from the Magical Mystery Tour album, including “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane,” and “All You Need Is Love.”

The Beatles only starred in four films together (not counting the animated YELLOW SUBMARINE which they didn’t even voice) yet two of them have been virtually impossible to see in any home viewing format for decades. A HARD DAY’S NIGHT and HELP were both acclaimed successes with long histories of VHS and DVD releases but LET IT BE, a 1970 documentary showing how the Beatles rehearsed in preparation for a new live tour, despite winning an Oscar for Original Song Score, has never been seen since its original theatrical release. LET IT BE captured the Fab Four as they were in the process of breaking up, bickering and acting chilly to each other in a most un-Beatle-like fashion. The other “lost” Beatles film is the 1967 MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, a 53-minute psychedelic road trip first broadcast on the BBC.

Critics at the time found MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR neither magical or mysterious and it was roundly trashed as a bizarre, scriptless mess (that the BBC first aired it in black and white by mistake probably didn’t help). But watching MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR today shows that it has aged well as a weird testament to the absolute charm of the Beatles, since even amidst all the sloppiness, cheesiness and sheer ineptitude, much of their anarchic spirit and sense of fun still manages to come through. Mainly, this happens in some of the musical sequences, especially “I Am the Walrus”(the only footage of Lennon performing this tune) or “Blue Jay Way”, which serve as fairly decent and imaginative precursors to the music video format which wouldn’t explode for another 15 years. Time has been good to MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR and 45 years later the film that has aged into a fascinating relic way ahead of its time. Don’t miss the chance to see DECONSTRUCTING THE BEATLES: MAGICAL MYSTERY   on the big screen.