Link: http://www.thesecretcinema.com

A friend who really needs to enter the Halls of Rock more than any other friend I know, Jay Schwartz, is screening The Beatles' lost feature Let It Be, as part of his Secret Cinema series at Moore College of Art & Design (20th & Race Sts, Philadelphia) this Friday, October 23. Showtime is 8:00 pm; admission is $7. I was planning on being there, but now I've got to make a whirlwind work trip across the country instead. If you've never seen this film on a big screen, I highly recommend it. If you've seen it long ago and live in the Philadelphia area, I still recommend being there. I'd love to read some discussion over it when I get back on Sunday.

If you do go, please do me one favor:

Follow up:

Introduce yourself to Jay, tell him your a Townsperson, and tell him he's been SUMMONED to enter the Halls of Rock and display his rock nerd prowess once and for all! And tell him we love him and all that nice stuff.

Here's the official Secret Cinema press release:

On Friday, October 23, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will present the Beatles' final feature film, LET IT BE. Though difficult to see -- LET IT BE, the movie, has been essentially out of circulation for at least a quarter-century -- it is nonetheless an essential chronicle of a dark but crucial period in the life of this greatest rock band ever. In addition to intimately capturing the recording of some of their best-known music, LET IT BE unflinchingly captures the breaking apart of the Beatles. Out of TV and theatrical distribution, and still unreleased on DVD, we are excited to be presenting an archival, dye-transfer Technicolor print of this holy grail of rock docs as it was meant to be seen, projected from real film on the big screen.

The screening will include surprise Beatles short subjects, and starts at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00

All Secret Cinema presentations are projected in 16mm film on a giant screen (not video).

A full description of the feature follows.

LET IT BE (1970, Dir: Michael Lindsay-Hogg)
After the all-encompassing "White Album," the Beatles looked for an alternate approach to continue creatively together as a unit. The idea: to return to their roots of writing, rehearsing, recording and performing a brand new album for the public, all the while filming the process. The project continued to change throughout production, and nothing turned out as imagined -- even the now famous "rooftop" concert was a last minute change. The fascinating "bioscopic" result (boiled down from a full month's worth of shooting during January 1969) was released as a theatrical film (not a multi-part TV program as originally planned) a year later. Without intending, the Beatles had chronicled their own demise as it happened.

British television director Michael Lindsay-Hogg had previously directed promo clips for the Beatles and Rolling Stones. He began the LET IT BE shoot just after working on the Stones' (ultimately un-aired) "Rock and Roll Circus" TV special, filming in the eye-on-the-wall cinema verite style. From the start the group were awkward and uncomfortable making music in a cold film studio while being filmed, and long-building tensions came to the surface as the cameras rolled. A switch in locale to their Apple headquarters helped relax them somewhat, but the film reveals that the musicians' relationships with each other had changed deeply since their start less than a decade before, and things would never be the same.

The project was temporarily shelved, and one more album (ABBEY ROAD) was recorded and released in the intervening year. April/May 1970, a confusing time for Beatles fans around the world, produced several foreboding signs: The release of solo albums from Paul and Ringo, an uncharacteristically orchestrated Beatles single (drastically altered from the version recorded in the film) that seemed to announce that the group's long road was ending, and Paul's proclamation that he was quitting the band. At the May 20 London Palladium premiere of LET IT BE, no Beatles would attend, a first for an official Beatles movie launch. For those inside watching the film, the reasons for the split were as big as life…and the sixties were definitely over.

LET IT BE had a short theatrical run, then became a staple of midnight screenings at repertory cinemas through the seventies. It was released on VHS by Magnetic Video, (the first company to sell prerecorded movies on video), and was ultimately released on laserdisc, but has been out of print on all formats since the early 1980s.