Paul McCartney Really Is Dead – The Last Testament
Of George Harrison (2010/Highway
61 Entertainment DVD/MVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Main Program: D
Of the
many myths surrounding The Beatles, the idea of Paul dying or being dead is one
of the most famous and its persistence played on the anxiety of the band
possibly breaking up, which they eventually did. Of course, Paul McCartney was almost killed
in a 1966 car crash which started the rumors, but like Elvis spottings, some
people just can’t let things go. Paul McCartney Really Is Dead – The Last
Testament Of George Harrison is a cynical, exploitive would-be documentary
that is so bad, I could not believe what I was watching.
In it,
the host claims his company received two audio tapes which supposedly have the
late, great George Harrison’s voice on them.
They claim three tests “failed to confirm” it was him, but anyone who
loves his music can tell after listening a while it is absolutely an impostor. The big secret is that in 1966, McCartney was
beheaded (yes, you read that correctly, but stay with me for a moment) and MI-5
or MI-6 (British intelligence, who we’ll call MI-6 from now on since this
supposedly came from the top) was so concerned that they decided to keep it a
secret and get a winner of a McCartney look-alike contest to be him, starting
with some plastic surgery or mass suicides might become epidemic in England.
However,
the remaining band members were threatened with death (Ringo is not addressed
much here, but this hack job program has the nerve to claim Lennon was killed
by the CIA and MI-6 in 1980 to stop him from telling this “truth”, which is a
huge insult) so they went along with pretending this new Paul (who this
Harrison imitator calls “Faul” as in faux or false) yet tried to let fans know
the truth by the clues originally on the albums supporting the earlier
myth. This gets to be a bit much, with
the Harrison impersonator sounding more like
he is narrating the video than just recording audio.
The fake
Paul is “identified” by pictures that do not look like him (including supposed
scars that are likely McCartney’s from the accident) and this torture test has
more logic holes in it than most Swiss Cheese slices and cheesy it is. It also expects viewers to not know as much
about The Beatles as fans like this writer do.
As for
other flaws, what about George Martin, what was his involvement? Brian Epstein, their manager, is never
addressed and amazingly, his death is never blamed on poor MI-6. Yoko Ono is hardly mentioned or seen, so that
is a problem. Then there is this new
1966 model McCartney. He can sing and
play like McCartney, sing like McCartney and somehow, moved on to have more
hits than any of the other ex-members of the band through his solo work, band
Wings and other projects, making this impostor the greatest trickster in music
history? Guess MI-6’s best surgeons
secretly found a way to transplant the talent too.
There is
more, but we have wasted enough time demonstrating how bad this is. These taped were labeled 12/30/99, so why did
this dumb DVD take so long? Because they
received the tapes late, in 2006? Wow,
the audio sure held up well for analog magnetic tape. Oh, and the mean, angry MI-6 spymaster doing
the threats is named Maxwell!
Oh and
the stabbing of Harrison is supposed to be
part of this, but enough lies already.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is weak, on videotape and cheap throughout, including
laughable animation using actual Beatles album covers, among other things. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is weak and lame,
like the rest of this disc. The
combination is passable at best. Extras
include soundtrack MP3s of the phony music and a dumb Beatles/Bob Dylan piece
that will not qualify for any serious studies of either anytime soon.
- Nicholas Sheffo
