Beatlemania Sweeps Across America in First ‘Beatles ’64’ Trailer

Beatlemania is almost here again. After the massive success of Peter Jackson’s expansive documentary The Beatles: Get Back, Disney+ is about to take another look back at the British band that took America by storm with Beatles ’64. Set across one electric year, the film captures their immediate impact on American fans, from the moment they landed at the John F. Kennedy International Airport on February 7, 1964, to their now-iconic performance on The Ed Sullivan Show with 73 million viewers watching. The first trailer shared today shows the scope of their first visit to the U.S. as they’re welcomed everywhere by adoring fans while offering a more intimate view of the camaraderie between The Beatles as they take in New York and beyond.

Just as America embraced The Beatles with open arms, the trailer shows the group embracing America and its culture in kind. Even as everything rushed past them like a hurricane in John Lennon’s eyes and Ringo Starr lost track of where they were, they took in as much of the music, food, and dancing as they could. Other artists alive at the time, like the great Smokey Robinson, spoke to their widespread appeal as a group that touted growing up listening to Black music and embraced a sound for everyone. Yet, Paul McCartney and George Harrison also speak to Beatlemania as the perfect storm of circumstance and history. In a world where Kennedy had just been assassinated, and the world was going, as Harrison puts it, “crazy,” they believed The Beatles were a uniquely normal and uplifting presence helping to take minds off of the sorrow.

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