SHERYL LEE   STEPHEN DORFF   and   IAN HART

star in

BACKBEAT

Some people would sacrifice anything for their music.

Some people would give it all up for love.

Before they became the legend we know today, The Beatles were just like any other band!!

"A thrilling spectacle that rocks the house!"

VHS - PAL - NEW - NEVER PLAYED!! - VERY RARE!! - M-rated - Colour - 100-minutes - 1994-release - Original Oz release - Large box

NOTE: Double sided sleeve for this title - you decide!!

John Lennon and the rest of his new rock-and-roll group - Paul McCartney, Pete Best, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe - travel to Hamburg to try their luck.

Word soon gets out and they become increasingly popular, especially with the girls.

But Stuart still thinks he is a better painter than bass guitarist, and he has fallen seriously in love with a German girl.

He and the rest of the group have to make some decisions.

This is an excellent depiction of the Beatles ' Hamburg days.

But the movies real heroes are actually Sutcliffe, Lennon and Astrid.

The movie was made some years after Goldman's infamous book and there are hints at a homosexual relationship between John and Stu ("You're jealous of me!" Astrid would have said to John!) but the director does not insist and he finally depicts a true friendship.

He pits Stu's down-to-earth world against Astrid's chic elitist intellectual one : they go to the pictures to see Melville's "Les Enfants Terribles" (actually a Cocteau story), and she seems to be very fond of the French culture: Cocteau, Sartre ,Edith Piaf , Rimbaud, and she was ahead of her time since fifteen years later, rock singer Patti Smith had the same idols.

The scenario also sketchs a parallel between the Klaus Voorman /Astrid relationship and "Les Enfants Terribles".

 Ian Hart is an excellent John Lennon, in turn cynical, violent, delicate, nasty, hateful; Gary Bakewell resembles Paul, but he is not given a single moment to shine; as for George, he is completely insignificant.

The music is very exciting .

Even when Stu (Dorff) sings his ditty in a gleeful croak, it's rock and roll!
A must for Beatles' fans everywhere!!!