Moptop invasion

Every so often you pick up something without an understanding of what to expect. It's harder to do nowadays, with the hype machine picking up full blast anything that shows even the barest hint of promise--so unless you see something before anybody else, or are there when there's just the rawest of potential, by the time you're watching or listening or reading, you already know what to expect.

Unless, of course, you go backwards and don't do a google search beforehand. Which is how I came across the documentary of the Beatles' first trip to America, .

The film, it turns out, was done by the Maysles. The film shows all their trademarks--they get faces and small details, even if that means the camera is jerky, the only music and sound is ambient (if you don't like shrieking, you may want to skip this...), and the clips are edited non-smoothly. It's truth, at the expense of prettiness.

My favorite moments:

-The funny Beatles poster in the radio station, with their heads mounted on an album cover and moving like a bobblehead doll

-Walter Cronkite's voice as CBS reports on the Beatles coming to the U.S.; funny hearing him do a 'pop culture' piece--which appropriately runs at the end of the show, right before he intones, "And that's the way it is, Friday, Feb. 7, 1964."

-Ringo Starr, looking and acting like Tim's character from The Office; he's got the ability to detach, leading to a look in his eyes sometimes like he's not even there

-The New York press jostling and yelling to get them to pose in more interesting ways in Central Park

-The Beatles calling in to 1010 WINS (back before it went all-news), with Paul McCartney calling it WINS, Winston Churchill.

-Funny how much time they seemed to spend just hanging out in the hotel room, messing around with each other, always with the radio on

-On the famous Edi Sullivan show appearance, Paul and George's crazy eyebrows; the way the show's captions identified each of them in turn by first name (under John's name it read Sorry girls, he's married)

-Shaking it as they danced at the Peppermint Lounge, to the music of a black band

-Aggressively clowning around with the press on the train to DC

-Ringo rocking out as he sang I Wanna Be Your Man in DC, on an odd stage where they were in the middle surrounded by a totally bonkers crowd

-Ed Sullivan hosting his show from Miami Beach, and the Beatles playing new material in front of a nearly shriek-free crowd; after which Ed told them Richard Rogers ("who's one of America's most famous composers") had wanted him to tell them that he was one of their most rabid fans

-The band struggling to pack everything into their luggage (before stars had people for that kind of thing)

-The married John not being around much

-Sullivan's speech before the 3rd and final Beatles show, about how great their conduct has been; by the time he stepped in to insert "The Beatles!" with a jerk of his arm before their last song, you could easily imagine him quitting his day job and going on tour with them--this most enigmatic of figures seemed to just beam when he was with them

What a fun thing to watch. I think there's too much irony today for something like the Beatles to sweep through again. American Idol at its best might approach it; but I've never seen people as excited as they were to see the Beatles, it was almost like they were Japanese in their lemmingness.

Their tour of the U.S. took place in the depths of winter just a few months after JFK had been assassinated, so maybe the country was actively looking for a break. You forget what it's like to not have tons of tv channels, music everywhere and the internet at your disposal.

Plus, pre-baby boomer revolution everyone had all this pent up energy and emotion, and it was really only via shows like Sullivans and concerts that people could let it out collectively.

Hence, all the shrieking.

Uncredited AP photo of the Beatles with Ed Sullivan via CBC site.