Beatles Stories: A Fab Four Fan’s Ultimate Road Trip

Longtime Beatles fan Swirsky’s first film demonstrates how difficult it is to say anything new or interesting about the legendary Fab Four, undoubtedly the most documented and analyzed band in the history of popular music. Swirsky tries by compiling a bevy of brief interview snippets from Beatles associates and fellow fans, including some major and minor celebrities both in and out of the music business, e.g., Henry Winkler, Smokey Robinson, Jackie DeShannon, Graham Nash, and Art Garfunkel, who discuss with the fawning filmmaker their longtime experiences or one-time encounters with John, Paul, George, or Ringo. The anecdotes are amusing but pointless, providing no fresh insight into the Beatles’ personalities or saying anything meaningful about the band’s well-known story that even the most casual fan won’t already know. Swirsky’s narration ties the tales together but adds nothing substantive. The use of Beatles sound-alike music is a disappointing distraction that makes the film seem more amateur than it really is. Bonus features include gushing, chatty commentary by Swirsky and a featurette on ex-Beatles recording engineer Norman Smith.