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Paul McCartney Really is Dead
The brainchild of heretofore unknown auteur
Joel Gilbert, Paul McCartney Really is Dead purports to offer the
heretofore hushed-up last testament of late guitarist George Harrison,
in which the former Beatle reveals that Paul McCartney did actually die
in the mid-1960s, and was indeed replaced by a lookalike, as some news
sources claimed at the time. A series of ‘proofs’ are duly offered in
support of rock’s most time-honoured urban myth.
Recorded on mini-cassette tape as the
former Beatle lay dying in hospital, copies of the recordings were, as
Gilbert solemnly informs the viewer, subsequently sent anonymously to
the office of his Hollywood-based Highway 61 Entertainment. All of
which might make for compelling viewing, were it not for three glaring
little factoids:
1) it seems unlikely that such revelatory
recordings, presumably worth several million pounds, would be sent to an
unknown Hollywood production firm instead of, say, The Daily Mirror,
2) the whisper quiet, blemish-free ‘tapes’
were clearly recorded in a studio and not onto mini-cassette by a dying
man in a busy hospital, and
3) the voice on the tapes is patently not
that of George Harrison; in fact, it might be the worst, most
unintentionally hilarious Beatle impersonation of all time
These omissions may be excusable on the
grounds that ‘it’s all just a bit of fun’ or the like, but Gilbert plays
it so unrelentingly stony-faced that any chance at levity is ruined from
the outset. Some of the proofs offered for the ‘Paul is dead’ are
entertaining and plausible enough, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been
explored elsewhere, in more detail, by writers and filmmakers of a
higher calibre than Gilbert. At one point ‘Harrison’ pronounces the
word catchy as ‘kitchy’, for Christ’s sake, sounding more like a
confused New Zealander than a Liverpudlian. Surely if you are going to
stage a spoof then the first thing would be to source an impersonator
who can actually approximate the voice of the alleged source??? Some of
the video footage and photographs of the Beatles are well-chosen, but
again hardly rare or exclusive.
More crockumentary than mockumentary,
Paul McCartney Really is Dead tries its darndest but never really
finds its wings. Perhaps Highway 61 Entertainment should have just let
it be.
Special Features
As evidenced by the name of his production
company Gilbert is obviously something of a Dylan fanatic, and the
principal bonus feature is a 10-minute interview with ailing Dylan
cohort Al Aronowitz, who was present when the folk icon met the four
Beatles in 1964. It’s interesting enough but once again the limited
amounts of original video footage feature in terrible sub-bootleg
quality, and Aronowitz’s observations aren’t anything that isn’t
explored in more depth on No Direction Home or The Beatles
Anthology. Further evidence of Gilbert’s high regard for his own
output is the inclusion of 16 instrumental mp3s, which comprise the
film’s soundtrack.
Audio & Video
Though the film doesn’t feature any
original music by the Beatles, or Bob Dylan for that matter, the
two-channel audio is respectable enough. The 16:9 widescreen transfer
is a disappointment; for the most part it’s grainy and video-quality at
best, and much of the archive material is blurry, presumably due to
having been sourced from bootlegs and obscure corners of the internet. |
