The album has been reissued, but I’ve never been able to find the movie. I saw it at the age of 7 when it came out. I was totally enthralled, and didn’t pick up on the impending sense of doom. It all was about to come to an end. Anyway, whatever happened to the movie?
Thanks!
It is not commercial available unfortunately. 
I have only seen many clips from it but never the entire movie.
I’d hazzard a guess that Yoko is somehow holding up its release.
I haven’t see the film since 1980. It was excellent.
The movie has been re-edited and transferred to DVD, and it is on the list for release at some point. With Apple, we never know why they do things the way they do. It’s one of the most requested items among music fans. “When is Let It Be coming out on DVD?” So, they’re working on it, and it apparently has extra footage (the original is only 88 minutes). I can only hope that this time they’ve synchronized the sound and video (film sync is terrible).
I have a VHS tape of this movie recorded off an analog CED Videodisc, which you loaded into the player by sticking the whole package into the slot. It was basically a record, that had audio and video information on it. RCA Selectavision.
It was released by CBS Home Video back in the ‘80s, but it’s long out of print, and goes for fairly big bucks in the collectors’ market. Let It Be was one of the first videodiscs, to entice people to buy a player. You couldn’t see the movie any other way.
Among collectors, there circulates a digitized video of the original 16mm film print. This contains more picture than the commercial release, which was blown up to 35mm and cropped.
One of my favorite scenes from it (I saw it in College – OLD FART ALERT) is during the recording of “I’ve Got a Feeling” After the “All I was looking for was someone who looks like you!” there’s this grinding guitar playing a series of decending chords. It is played by John. Paul is trying to get him to really grind the chords out – they go through it 3 maybe 4 time with Paul correcting John during each one. Finally Lennon, obviously upset just grinds those chords down and Paul is like “Yes, that’s it” completely oblivious or just plain ignoring Lennon’s apparent anger.
There is a feeling of finality about the whole thing as you watch it there is none of the gang of guys feeling you had in the early days – they’ve clearly tired of each others company and are – with the possible exception of McCartney – disinterested in doing anymore than they need to and minimizing contact with each other at every opportunity. There are a few warm moments but on the whole there is a sense of unhappiness and loss about them. A distance you wouldn’t have seen in any “show” prior to this one.
Great film, I hope it is released, as much as I enjoy their romps, this is just can’t take your eyes away drama with great music. (though I hope they replace the over orchestrated pieces with the ones from LIB: Naked.
I’ve got a copy. The sound doesn’t exactly line up and the quality is pretty poor, but it’s the movie. I think you can find copies of it on eBay. My favoirte scene is John and Paul singing “Two of Us” together. Paul does an Elvis snarl, and John goes to town on the guitar. Yoko looks on disapprovingly. I also like John and Yoko waltzing to “I Me Mine.”
I’ve also heard for a couple of years now that ***Let It Be *** was going to be released “soon.” I don’t have a cite but I had read somewhere a couple of years ago that one of the reasons it was not generally available is that George Harrison did not like the film. He thought it was too depressing.
My public library showed it earlier this year and it was the first time I’d ever seen it. One of the most fascinating scenes has Ringo playing a new song he wrote (“Octopus’s Garden”) for Harrison and George Martin. Ringo is on piano and George is strumming an acoustic guitar. John and Yoko walk in and John immediately sits down at the drums and starts playing along. About a minute later (screen time), Paul and Linda (with her kids) walk in and the other three just stop as if the air had been sucked out of the room. It was just so apparent that the other three couldn’t stand him at that point and Paul was totally oblivious.
One thing to remember regarding the whole Let It Be debacle: they had just finished the final sessions for The White Album in mid-October 1968–two and one-half months before getting back (ahem) for these sessions. Despite what they accomplished from 1962 to 1966 or so, going back to the studio so quickly after completing a double album (especially one that was created in an atmosphere of such tension) was just insane. No wonder they weren’t into it and felt the songs weren’t good enough.
According to a quote from an Apple representative, Let It Be is still undergoing extensive restoration for its eventual DVD release. Linky.
From another “old fart” that saw it in college… I recall that scene as well, but it was my impression that Paul was *intentionally * trying to piss Lennon off in order to elicit the result he was looking for, and that John was the one that was oblivious to what Paul was doing. After all, from what I’ve read about Paul, he’d do whatever it took to get the sound he was looking for. During the Abbey Road sessions, Paul intentionally screamed himself hoarse the night before recording “Oh Darling”, just to get the right gravelly quality in his voice.
On the other hand, it doesn’t explain letting Linda play in Wings.
(or maybe it does…) 
This isn’t quite right. I don’t have my reference books at work, but what he actually did was come in every day for about a week, about an hour before the other guys, to record this song. Some days he couldn’t get it. The final vocal you hear on the record is an amalgam of takes. There is one outtake of “Oh! Darling” where his voice gives out before the last middle eight, and he finishes it in falsetto because there was no more power to scream. This version also has an alternate, unused harmony that he sang with himself in the last verse.
On the other hand, John was stoned pretty much throughout the making of “Let It Be,” so he was probably slow to suss out what Paul wanted from him to begin with.