The Beatles’ ‘64’ Documentary Shows the Group’s Explosive Arrival Into the U.S.: “They Were a Ray of Light”

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On February 7, 1964, the United States — and subsequently, the whole world — was irrevocably changed. The Beatles touching down at John F. Kennedy airport, meeting thousands of adoring, screaming fans on the runway altered the brain chemistry of a country in need of something good, and lit the fuse for a cultural revolution.

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That is the premise which the Beatles ‘64 , a new documentary released by the band’s Apple Corps Ltd., presents to its viewers. In November 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed during a motorcade in Dallas, and the shocking moment instigated a period of mourning across the nation. Some would never recover from the trauma of seeing such a violent death, beamed into their homes on television. Months later, a new generation couldn’t tear themselves away from the television as The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched an estimated 73 million people. As interviewee Joe Queenan says, teary-eyed, it was like “the light went on,” and the world was bright and full of colour for the first time.

The new documentary, out now on Disney+, follows the band’s two-week trip to America, their first time outside of Europe. Using archival and newly-restored footage, the Martin Scorsese-produced film follows their journey from the moment they step off the flight to the moment they head home. It features a plethora of interviews with those in the eye of the storm like Paul McCartney , Ringo Starr and photographer Harry Benson, alongside the fans who were on the street or obsessing through the tube.

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Though the story may be familiar to Beatles fans already, the documentary is unflinching in its depiction of the band’s visit and the context that surrounds it. Archive interviews and clippings see a hostile press compare the group to “German measles,” while at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the disparity between the working class band and their bureaucratic, stuffy surroundings is laid bare. The divisions in race, class and gender are explored with interviews with Motown’s Smokey Robinson, and Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers, both of whom The Beatles covered early in their career.

On the eve of its release, director David … Read More