The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit (1991)

Directed by

Albert Maysles

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 23m

Rating

7.9 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary follows the Beatles as they travel to New York City, Washington D.C., and Miami Beach on their first trip to the United States. It shows the band in hotel rooms often acting irreverently and includes live performances from The Ed Sullivan Show.

observationalintimatelightheartednostalgicrawupbeatinformalhistoric

What happens

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit, released in 1991, is a re-edited version of the 1964 16mm documentary What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. by Albert and David Maysles. Both versions follow the Beatles on their first trip to the United States as they travel to New York City, Washington, D.C., and Miami Beach. Most of the non-musical footage is of the Beatles in hotel rooms, often acting irreverently in front of the camera. The new version is directed by Kathy Dougherty, Susan Froemke, and the Maysles. It is 83 minutes long, two minutes longer than the original. Among other changes, it adds 22 minutes of the Beatles' live recorded performances on The Ed Sullivan Show and removes several scenes with Brian Epstein. The original film premiered on 13 November 1964 as a special episode of the CBS variety series The Entertainers. It is still shown at various festivals, such as Silverdocs in 2008, and was shown at a special screening at the Maysles Cinema in New York on 18 November 2011 in honor of Albert Maysles' 85th birthday. Substantial footage from this documentary was digitally remastered and used in the 2024 documentary Beatles '64. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Beatles '64 (2024)
• The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016)
• Let It Be (1970)
• The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Concert (2022)
• How the Beatles Changed the World (2017)
• The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
• Baraka (1992)
• Get Back (1991)