I was eleven years old when the BBC issued a newsflash around lunchtime that December 8, 1980 that John Lennon got shot and killed by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building where he and Yoko Ono had been living.
Soon after, DOUBLE FANTASY hit the top spot in the UK album charts with (JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER hitting the top spot in the UK Top 40.. The legacy of John Lennon continued with grief across the world and the likes of IMAGINE and WOMAN also got Top Ten status in the same chart.
Given the recent Disney+ release of Peter Jackson‘s epic GET BACK three-parter – coupled with Paul McCartney‘s recent stint as the oldest headliner at eighty at Glastonbury and their last ever single NOW AND THEN getting a remastered airplay 45 years after its’ creation – the worldwide obsession with The Beatles is seemingly never-ending (Shania Twain also fantasised about them reforming in her song WHEN from her multi-million selling classic album COME ON OVER.)
One of the first ever video releases for the MGM/UA Home Video release (image below) in the early 1980s, THE COMPLEAT BEATLES, a documentary narrated by Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) which covered the initial years and success of the band.
Just when you thought there was nothing left to say, a new documentary tells the story of John Lennon‘s post-Beatles years from the perspective of his assistant-turned-partner, May Pang, in THE LOST WEEKEND: A LOVE STORY.
Pang is a first-generation Chinese-American born in New York, the product of immigrants who sent her to a Catholic school to make things better, but an abusive father’s stranglehold coupled with a workaholic mother inspired Pang to head on the New York Subway where by chance she found the Apple Building where the Beatles were in the last throes of their time as a foursome. Blagging her way into a secretarial position, she soon found herself becoming an assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Soon after, the relationship between John and Yoko wasn’t going so well, so by a mixture of encouragement (and seeming fear) Yoko suggested to Pang that she see John to try and alleviate their problems.
What follows is an interesting expose of Lennon’s life in America where he met his fate and becoming part of a wild musical family which included Harry Nilsson and Elton John and the discovery that all the Beatles were actually still tied in the charts and helping work on a rock-and-roll album where John and Paul played in a jam session.
Pang’s own journey provides some interesting reference points, notably getting credit on some of Lennon’s solo albums and also providing some of the key backdrop to the simple video to IMAGINE which was screened as the song reissue hit number one in 1980.
An interview with Julian Lennon also highlights the strong bond he had with May when he had difficulties relating to his father during those early years and their reconciliation alongside first wife Cynthia.
THE LOST WEEKEND: A LOVE STORY is admirable and will make a good companion piece to the other Beatles content that is freely available at present. The telling impression is of a complex individual who opened up more the further he got away from Beatlemania and his discovery of what true personal happiness could be.
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story will Premiere Exclusively on the Icon Film Channel from 20th November. The film will then be available on DVD, Blu-ray & Digital from 18th December.
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