The Beatles

Nothing new to see, hear or learn for any diehard Beatles fan here but this 45-minute documentary offers a comprehensive account of what John, Paul, George, Pete and Stu were up to between 1960 and ’62. (If you’re wondering who Pete and Stu are, and what happened to Ringo, then this doc is for you.) Veteran rocker and early Beatles collaborator Tony Sheridan provides plenty of first-hand details and, save for a few newsreel clips, that’s about as close as the production gets to the jealously guarded Beatles brand. The laughable, double-take-inducing notice on the back of the DVD case rings true: This program contains no Beatles music. It does, however, include some "never-before-seen footage,” although you kind of have to take the producer’s word for it. For some reason (perhaps to add context to the film’s focal period) the narrative unnecessarily continues well into the Beatles’ rise to glory in the U.S.A. and subsequent fall from grace after John Lennon’s much ballyhooed suggestion about the band being more popular than Jesus and better tasting than hamburgers. Bonus material includes a 1967 radio interview and several recordings of Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers.