Radio Gonzo

Tony Palmer is undoubtedly one of the best known British film directors of the past 50yrs. However, music lovers will be more impressed by the fact that he was the bloke who wrote the liner notes for the Yellow Submarine album by The Beatles, and was – as far as I am aware – the first person to compare them as songwriters with the classical composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Over the years, Tony Palmer has been involved with a number of Beatles-related projects, but I had never heard how this relationship began until one day several years ago, when Tony, my wife and I were sitting down, eating cake and swilling back tea. Back in 1976, the legendary Lou Reizner came up with one of the more peculiar Beatles related projects. All This and World War II is a 1976 musical documentary that juxtaposes Beatles songs, performed by a number of musicians, with World War II newsreel footage and 20th Century Fox films from the 1940s. It lasted two weeks in cinemas. I only ever saw it once and thought it was a horrendous