GALLERY: Unseen Beatles Footage From Magical Mystery Tour Webcast On The Space's Arena Hotel

If you thought that the Beatles have been so pored over that there couldn't possibly be anything new to see, hear or read about them, guess again.  The former Fab Four's business concern, Apple Corps has granted the BBC TV arts series Arena unseen footage of the band.  Arena has cut this footage to make a short for its Arena Hotel online project with the digital-arts website The Space. Arena Hotel debuted the short exclusively on Tuesday.  A spokesman for The Space says the footage was shot during the making of a documentary about the Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour film and features the band on "a coach trip to a classic British  fish-and-chip shop, en route to Newquay, the final destination of the tour."  more »

Strange Fruit Tells the Epic, Enthralling Story of The Beatles' Failed Apple Records

The film: Strange Fruit: The Beatles’ Apple Records (2012), available on DVD via Chrome Dreams

Why It’s an Inessential Essential: Clocking in at a mammoth 162 minutes, Strange Fruit: The Beatles’ Apple Records is an exhaustive new documentary about the short-lived record and film label that the Beatles used to release such artists as Badfinger and James Taylor. And while the absence of Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney and the lack of archival interview footage of the Beatles is striking (John Lennon only chimes in around the 135-minute mark), that’s also sort of liberating: The film takes a semi-critical look at why Apple, a label that was meant to have established artists promote new artists, never really took off.
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