m
Maybe he’s amazed:
Paul McCartney (above),
of Baades and Wing*
fame, mays filmmaking
givea him new Impetus.
HI HI HI: John Salthouse,
Linda and Paul
McCartney and
Itacey UHman (right).
AY JOAN GOODMAN
Part One: Beatles
Whipped with Spoons
I t's hard, it’s always hard
1 the first time,” says Paul
JiMcCartney. "/ remember
when we were starting out, I
mean the Beatles, we didn’t get
it right the first time either. This
ballroom dancing scene in the
film reminded me of that and
took me back a bit. We used to
play ballrooms a lot you know.
They were never as grand as this,”
McCartney gazes up at the sound stage at
Ellstree Studios, outside London. It is an
elaborate recreation of London’s historic
Lyceum Ballroom — great swags of pink
velvet and ornate splashes of gold paint.
On the dance floor, formation dancers in
pink tulle dresses remove their pumps
and relax their feet, while a technicai
problem with the camera which is on a
crane is sorted out. McCartney, in a
fifties-style bright blue drape suit and
black and white winkle-picker shoes re
calls, “I remember we once nearly won
a competition at one of them; but it was
always ‘nearly' and almost.' We always
got beaten by this woman who played
the spoons. An old lady who used to
come to all the concerts and enter all the
contests and play old favorites with a
bunch of spoon* She always used to
beat us,” Paul laughs.
“Even the blonde girl in this scene
reminds me of a bird me and Ringo
once tried to pull.” Ringo, in blue drapes
and dark glasses, is perched up behind
his drums on the bandstand. He gives
the drums a riff. Paul looks up and
smiles and excuses himself and makes
his way to the piano. John Paul Jones,
Led Zeppelin’s bass guitarist and the
legendary Dave Edmunds and Chris
Spedding originally of RockPile (all in
the film) pick up their instruments and
start jamming. The' sound filters through
and technicians on a break come round
to listen. Steven Spielberg, filming on
a neighboring set, stops work to take
in this creme de la creme British rock
session.
Part TWo: Twist and Shoot
Twenty years after A Hard Day’s Night
and Help Paul McCartney is back before
the movie cameras, writing, starring in
and generally supervising his own $8
million musical Give My Regards to
Broad Street (a Beatle-styie pun on Give
My Regards to Broadway' substituting the
name of a shabby London commuter sta
tion). It’s the latest twist in the career of
the world’s most successful pop com
poser — as certified by the Guinness
Book of Records — and one of the
world’s richest entertainers. The “cutest
Beatle" is now 42, his baby-faced good
looks vitually intact, fit and healthy from
the simple rural life he and his wife
Linda enjoy, though with a few flecks of
grey in his fashionably cut hair. Says
McCartney, “I took turning 40 as a cue to
do different things. There are millions of
things I’ve been interested in in my life
and never done, one of which happened
to be to write a screenplay. I’d enjoyed
making The Beatles’ films all those years
ago and i had it in the back of my mind
that I’d like to get back into the film
world. ”
While making the Tug of War al
bum with producer George Martin,
McCartney found himself being driven
from his Sussex farm to London and
back every' day. Since the trip took a
couple of hours each way and the album
was a year in the making, McCartney de