Expert: James Michael Anderson - 1/10/2007

Question
Is the movie of the making of Let It Be available anywhere?

Answer
Let it Be has been out of print since its initial release on VHS.  It is not currently available on DVD for commercial release but you can likely find some bootleg copies on eBay or other sites that sell unreleased material.

United Artists released Let It Be on home video in 1981 — on tape in VHS and Betamax, and on Laserdisc via a license to Magnetic Video. All of these versions were mono, and thus largely inferior to the actual Let It Be studio recordings. Along with these, various other permutations of Let It Be float around eBay as well, including duped V-CDs and (apparently bootleg) tapes that feature "extra footage." It also appears that EMI may have released their own legitimate VHS of Let It Be, but outside of the UA releases, I can't confirm that any other versions are bona fide. As it turns out, the surviving Beatles purchased back the rights to Let It Be from United Artists in recent years, and our understanding is that they own the film outright. They could release it at any time — even on DVD — and there were several rumors that it would re-appear during 2000, the 30th anniversary of the film's release. Alas, instead Beatles fans were treated to the Beatles Anthology book and the CD release of "1", which stormed record charts worldwide during last year's holiday shopping season. No Let It Be, and a lot more of what's already been.

As a further twist in this long and winding road, the long out-of-print video and laser editions of Let It Be are prized by Beatles collectors — the tapes trade between $60 – $90, and good LDs can close for as high as $300. However, they are not ideal by any stretch. Let It Be was originally shot on 16mm — partially due to the "Get Back" ethos of the album being recorded, partially due to budgeting, and perhaps partially due to the fact that the documentary was originally to air on television. When the decision was made to release the film theatrically, the print was blown up from 16mm to 35mm, making this final print gritty and sometimes troublesome. Furthermore, the 1981 transfer to home video was not done with the sort of precision and care that we expect on quality DVD releases nowadays — it was pretty much ported in the most convenient fashion and quickly forgotten.

Some Beatles fans, at least when they let their guards down, also will admit that the Let It Be documentary isn't a great film in its own right — it's just a compelling document of an enormously popular rock band consumed by egos and infighting. As a documentary, it has a slap-dash quality — the songs aren't always edited together properly, voices sometimes don't match the video — and only the final "rooftop concert," which turned out to be the band's final public performance, really delivers something special, something that reminds us why the Liverpudlian mop-tops were so charming just six years earlier (but, again, that's just the opinion of some Beatleologists).

Because of these issues, many Beatles obsessives have discussed the possibilities of an improved or extended cut of Let It Be, since hours and hours of raw footage were shot for the project. One rumor (that we can't confirm) is that the Beatles actually restored the entire film as long ago as 1992; some restored footage did appear in the Beatles Anthology, but that's all the public has seen so far. Other fans have speculated on an improved Let It Be that would be called Get Back, the original title of the album/film, and the title of a gray-market CD of the Let It Be album sans Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" post-production (and, without veteran producer George Martin at the helm, there's all sorts of ways these recordings theoretically could be produced).

If you can get a copy of this (http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=PPDVD1314§ion=1)
I would recommend it over the normal movie- the best part of the Let it Be film is really the rooftop concert and performances.