For decades, the attitude toward the documentary “Let It Be” in the Beatles‘ camp seemed to be: Let it it rest in peace. But the film is finally going to be seen again. A restored version of the 1970 movie is coming soon to Disney+, the same service that brought fans “The Beatles: Get Back,” the 2021 Peter Jackson docuseries that used outtakes from director Michael Lindsay-Hogg‘s original film.
The documentary will re-premiere on Disney+ May 8, certain to be a red-letter day for Beatles fans who have spent most of their lives wondering if it would ever be let out of the vault again. Not only has the 1970 film been dusted off, but it’s been restored by Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production using the same technology employed to make the vintage footage in “The Beatles: Get Back” look and sound as revitalized as it did.
The original film has been notorious for being the one item in the Beatles’ catalog that Apple seemed to want to suppress rather than exploit. “Let It Be” has not been officially in circulation in any form since the early 1980s, although muddy-looking bootleg copies have been widely available. Those boots were lifted off VHS and laserdisc versions that came out in the early days of the home video revolution; the movie never made it to a release in the DVD era, much less Blu-Ray or streaming.
Jackson used hours of outtakes from Lindsay-Hogg’s footage to assemble “The Beatles: Get Back.” During the publicity campaign for that project, he repeatedly vowed that his fresh treatment of the material was meant to complement the original film, not forever supplant it, and that the original doc would eventually be seen again so that they could stand as companion pieces.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, ‘Let It Be,’ has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” Jackson said in a statement. “I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for ‘Get Back,’ and I’ve always thought that ‘Let It Be’ is needed to complete the ‘Get Back’ story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and the Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and ‘Let It Be’ is that documentary – the movie they released in 1970. I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: ‘Let It Be’ is the climax of ‘Get Back,’ while ‘Get Back’ provides a vital missing context for ‘Let It Be.’ Michael Lindsay-Hogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made ‘Get Back,’ and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word… looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
For serious Beatles Kremlinologists, Get Back teased that Let It Be would likely be finally coming out in some form. Peter Jackson’s miniseries ends with the Beatles’ legendary final concert atop the Apple office building on Savile Row, but in 1969, the day after the rooftop concert, the Beatles were filmed performing three acoustic numbers indoors that they had deemed unsuitable for playing in the wintry conditions on the roof:
On 31 January, the last day of filming and recording, the Beatles reconvened in the Apple building’s basement studio. They played complete performances of “Two of Us”, “The Long and Winding Road” and “Let It Be”, which were included in the film as the end of the Apple studio segment, before the closing rooftop segment.
Presumably at Christmastime, there will some sort of box set, with either the Let It Be movie on Blu-Ray with an assortment of outtakes and bonus footage, the movie bundled with the Get Back miniseries, or both projects bundled with some or all of the contents from the Let It Be CD box set from 2021.
But will there be a token theatrical release as well? And will audiences respond differently than they did in 1970?
The crowd I first saw the original film with weren’t interested in a happier spin on the Beatles. They were there to render judgment, to be the choric voice of the Beatles’ community declaring their disapproval. In other words, they were there to boo. They were there to boo Yoko Ono. If I remember the film correctly, the opening credits were barely done when we see John Lennon, and there is Yoko, sitting right beside him.
“Boooo.”
Then, there is Yoko, knitting right beside him.
“Boooo.”
For the length of the movie, every time Yoko was on camera, the crowd booed, as if to say, “Take that, Yoko, for breaking up the Beatles.”
There are two things generally remembered about the film now: the euphoric rooftop concert that closes the movie and the horrible, miserable dust-up between bossy-pants Paul and passive-aggressive George. McCartney has been trying to get Harrison to play a less-busy strumming, and does so with cringe-making condescension: “I’m trying to help, but I always hear myself annoying you,” says an exasperated Paul.
“No, you’re not annoying me,” says George in a flat you’re-dead-to-me tone. “You don’t annoy me anymore.” It is the scene that best captures the unhappiness and mutual dislike that was destroying the band.
But Peter Jackson says that such scenes did not accurately represent what was going on between the Beatles, and he has the footage to prove it.
Jackson’s Get Back decisively accomplished that in 2021; finally though we’ll get to see, in pristine form, the last movie release from their run as an active band.