Birth of the Beatles (1979)

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I'll give this movie a 4 just on the basis that it's better than "Backbeat" (90's art-film hogwash about the bromance between John and Stu), and it gets a little bit of a pass for being the first movie to really tackle the beginnings of The Beatles.BUT! There are still plenty of things about it that make my skin crawl. The actors look ten+ years older than the 20 year-old Beatles they're playing. Especially in the early scenes the guys are treated like wacky cartoon characters; sweet, goofy, ambitious young men with a dream in their hearts! In reality, the post-Hamburg, pre-Epstein Beatles were raunchy, groupie-screwing, foul-mouthed, drunken lunatics, Lennon especially. I feel like this movie kinda makes them out to be boy scouts (but again, in 1979, the full extent of their hedonism probably was still pretty unknown). Like a lot of other reviews have stated, Pete Best was the main historical consultant on this, so all the circumstances around his sacking should be taken with a grain of salt (listen to a pre-Ringo recording of The Beatles - Pete straight sucked at drums).I've said this about "Backbeat" too, but it should be noted that The Beatles were pretty notoriously terrible before they shipped off to Hamburg. I know they only had so much time to cram in a lot of info, but the film shows very little musical growth; we just have to pretend that they were amazing from the beginning.Other things: in addition to a very polished, 1964-sounding Beatles on stage in Hamburg, there's also an overwhelmingly syrupy, dramatic-sounding score all over everything. They have Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison being a lot nicer to Pete and Stu than they allegedly were in real life (they gave Stu endless grief for being a crappy musician, and couldn't stand Pete Best's moody "bad boy" BS). Like in "Backbeat", Allan Williams, their first manager, is completely absent from the film. Brian Epstein is treated like a sensitive little toddler rather than the extravagant, genius businessman he was.I dunno, I always think the main issue with these Beatle movies is that the writers never actually know enough about The Beatles to accurately capture everyone's personality/the history. This is like watching...well, a mediocre TV movie. It makes the most badass rock band of all time look like they belong in a stupid after-school special. I recommend "Nowhere Boy" or "The Beatles Anthology," but this one's okay I guess, especially for how old it is.

In my Opinion this is one of the better films about the Beatles. I know some arty types prefer Backbeat but I feel that this movie captures the Beatles more accurately. I don't mean everything about the film is accurate but they capture the personality, talent and spirit of four young Liverpool lads who became the Beatles.Stephen MacKenna is outstanding as John and the other actors do passable impersonations of the others. Brian Jameson is good as Brian Epstein and Nigel Havers is brilliant as George Martin.On stage they look and act like the Beatles and there is enough music to keep fans happy, remembering that this is the early days before they hit it really big.So for genuine Beatles fans this is a movie well worth seeing.

We all know that dramatic adaptations of historical events are almost never 100% accurate, otherwise they would not be "adaptations". However I felt that this film reflected a certain consultant's true feelings.Now I know I wasn't there and Pete Best was, but it seems odd to me that this movie (on which he acted as a primary consultant) contradicts other people's recollection of certain events. For example Pete Best is portrayed as a strikingly handsome, highly proficient drummer. This simply isn't true (the drumming proficiency). Many people will say that Best was at best (no pun intended) a mediocre drummer (one can also hear on the Anthology that Best's drumming lacks the drive, timing, and bounce that was distinctive to Ringo's). It seems that Best feels that his dismissal from the band was a grave injustice and a plain old bad idea. They even go as far in this film as to say that EMI (i.e. George Martin) liked his playing, and according to George Martin himself, it was he who told the Beatles that they'd have to use a session drummer because Pete's playing just wasn't good enough.Other than these glaring discrepancies and some chronological conjecture (Stu Sutcliffe died some time after the rest of the Beatles had left Hamburg for good) this is an average made-for-TV movie on one of the greatest bands of all time.

As a knowledgeable fan I recommend this film as faithful to the facts and well acted. As an 11 year old living in Istanbul I heard some friends talking about a new music sensation that caused girls to scream. I thought hmmmm, if girls like them, they must be crap. My only records until then were Haley Mills, The Everly Brothers & Ricky Nelson. Soon after while on vacation with the family at a military cafeteria in Ismir I heard a song (which I later learned was 'Love Me Do') and was floored by the difference between it and every song I had ever heard until then. When I heard the 'Meet The Beatles' album of my older brother I was hooked for life. Having read the definitive book of their beginnings (by Davis) I was surprised that this movie followed the facts very well with the exception of leaving out most of the sex and some of the drug use (it did touch on the use of methadrine/dexadrine). >