Let It Be is a 1970 film about The Beatles rehearsing and recording songs for the album Let It Be in January 1969. Released 12 days after the album, it was the last original Beatles release.
The original premise of the film was to show the Beatles rehearsing and eventually performing a live concert. However, the band members had begun to drift apart for some time, and the project inadvertently documents some of the aspects leading to the band's eventual break-up.
The Beatles assembled at Twickenham Film Studios on January 2, 1969, accompanied by the film crew, and began rehearsing. There were tensions and disagreements among the Beatles, and they disliked the conditions at the Twickenham studios and the working schedule. They started work in the morning rather than working late into the night as they had been accustomed to doing at Abbey Road Studios, where they usually recorded their songs.
On January 10 George Harrison announced that he was leaving the band, although this is not documented in the film. He went home and, according to him, wrote Wah-Wah[1] He was persuaded to return and the band resumed work on January 22 at their own new basement recording studio at Apple's headquarters in Savile Row, London. The film shows the band rehearsing and performing the songs that wound up on the Let It Be album, as well some of the songs from the Abbey Road album, which the band reconvened in the summer of 1969 to record. The studio portion of the film ends with a performance filmed at Apple on January 30, 1969 in which the Beatles perform finished versions of "Two of Us", "The Long and Winding Road", and "Let It Be".
The original concept for the film project called for the documentary to end with a live show, the first live public performance by the band since the end of their last tour, on August 29, 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. However, agreeing on a format for the live show proved problematic.
After failing to agree on any other venue, the band settled for an unannounced concert atop their own building, Apple's headquarters in Savile Row near Piccadilly Circus. The Beatles played five songs during the rooftop performance: "Get Back" (three times), "Don't Let Me Down" (twice), "I've Got a Feeling" (twice), "One After 909", and "Dig a Pony". (The Beatles also played a brief version of the British national anthem, "God Save the Queen" and a brief rehearsal of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" while second engineer Alan Parsons was changing tapes. Those performances were omitted from the film.) [4]
After the final song, McCartney says, "Thanks, Mo!" acknowledging the enthusiastic applause and cheering from Maureen Starkey. Then Lennon closes with his well-known remark, "I'd like to say 'thank you' on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition!"[4] This comment was spliced on to the end of the Let It Be album.
I haven't heard the details, but I know MTV has been playing tribute to the Beatles documentary and 'rooftop concert' (yes, that's right, the same MTV that's hardly played anything other than pop or rap in over a decade). I think there may be a newly remastered version appearing soon that was started in 2007; therefore MTV is helping promote it. The restored version is said to be leaps and bounds better than the previous releases...But, MTV playing Rock n Roll again? Yes, once again, Rock is in.
The movie won an Oscar for the soundtrack, but this is more than just a musical documentation, this is a film. It has real-life characters and scenarios and those characters have motives (George Harrison). Truth is always stranger than fiction. And the recording of the band's dissolvement for all to see makes it a real historical artifact.
The fact that the band chose for it's last ever concert a rooftop setting (in the middle of the afternoon of all times) in the cold, blustering winds of downtown London, certainly makes for one of the more dramatic moments in movie history...but I don't think even Hollywood would ever buy a script this far-fetched:
