The 4 Complete Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The
Beatles (2010/Universal Music/Hip-O
Records DVD Set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B+
The event
that remains The Beatles historic appearances on the smash hit variety TV Ed Sullivan Show has been referenced,
discussed and shown in bits and pieces for many years, yet seeing all four
shows in their entirety has not been so easy, even with the many Sullivan DVD
releases to date. Now, Hip-O Records and
Universal Music have finally issued the complete episodes in the highly
self-explanatory The 4 Complete Ed
Sullivan Shows Starring The Beatles DVD set and they are very entertaining
to watch al the way through.
The four
shows are as follows:
February
9, 1964 – The band sings All My Loving,
Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There and I
Wanna Hold Your Hand, plus we get two performances from the stage musical Oliver! and several comedy bits
including a great performance by Frank Gorshin impersonating every Hollywood star he can think of only a year away from
playing The Riddler on the hit TV series Batman.
February
16, 1964 – The band sings She Loves You,
This Boy, All My Loving, I Saw Her
Standing There, From Me To You
and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, plus
Sonny Liston and Joe Louis show up in the audience, Mitzi Gaynor has two
singing segments and the comedy team of Allen & Rossi do a skit that
includes a reference to the band.
February
23, 1964 – The band sings Twist &
Shout, Please Please Me and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, plus Cab
Calloway sings two songs, Morecambe & Wise do a skit and we get stand up
from Morty Gunty and Dave Barry.
September
12, 1965 – The band sings I Feel Fine,
I’m Down, Act Naturally, Ticket To Ride,
Yesterday and Help!, Cilla Black (Lennon & McCartney wrote her first hit) sings
a few songs and Soupy Sales shows up funny as always. This was the last black and white show
Sullivan taped, so the band missed color (for whatever reasons) by one show.
The full
credits for each show are include the DigiPak case, listing everything but the
commercials, which range from effective to hilarious, but they are all well
done and make this set all the more fun to watch. The 4 Complete Ed Sullivan Shows
Starring The Beatles set is a long overdue release and is highly
recommended.
The 1.33
X 1 image black and white image on the four episodes looks good and clean for
NTSC reel-to-reel taped programs of their age, but a little more restoration to
correct streaking and minor errors would be nice. Otherwise, this is as good as these shows and
their famous music performances ever looked to date. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a little
compressed and the Dolby 2.0 Mono is actually more naturalistic to the point
that receivers with the capacity to boost mono sound should take those tracks
and upgrade them that way for better results.
Extras
include every promo announcing each upcoming appearance of the band, plus a
final color clip of a telegram the group sent Sullivan when the theater was
about to be named after him.
For more
on The Beatles, start at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6334/Can%E2%80%99t+Buy+Me+Love
- Nicholas Sheffo
