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Dear Beatle People- Those are the words of Freda Kelly, National
Secretary of the Official Beatles Fan Club.
ForeignFilmcast Episode 37 Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
Send feedback to foreignfilmcast@gmail.com or leave voicemail at (818) 925-TIC1.
I just saw "Good 'Ol Freda". It's great. If you find the story of the Beatles or Beatlemania
interesting, this one's for you. This movie was released Friday, September
6 in theaters, with simultaneous online streaming releases.
It's number 2 on the iTunes documentary chart, after "Stories We Tell"-- also a great movie,
that one from Canada. The Freda movie is also on Youtube on demand,
Google Play, Vudu, and Amazon. I'll be spoiling a few things, so if that
concerns you, just stop & stream for yourself. This is the story of Freda, who ran the fan
club for I think 11 years. The movie doesn't reveal much that isn't known
about the Beatles, but it gives you the vicarious pleasure of imagining
what it might have been like for a 17 year-old secretary in 60s Liverpool to be in the center
of the arguably unrivaled Beatlemania. Freda is a very private woman. According to
the movie she didn't even talk much about the Beatles with her own family.
Her son had wanted her to be more open about the experience, but Freda didn't' comply--
and her son is now gone. The arrival of her only grandson inspired
her to document her story. She wants her grandson to know that she was part of something remarkable.
The story begins when the Beatles were wearing leather jackets & playing at the Cavern Club
with Pete Best on drums. On screen, Freda is very endearing. She's
a woman of integrity, saying that after the fan club ended, she continued to answer letters
on her own, little by little, taking about 3 years to do so.
We're also told that she was quite strict in her morality. When a fan club helper girl
had placed someone's hair in an envelope, ready to go to a fan with the false claim
that it was Beatles hair, she fired a whole set of assistants, even though they were most
likely not all involved.
The movie was I think partly funded by Kickstarter-- and it does feature some actual Beatles music,
though not as much as I'd like.
I give it a thumbs up and close by saying, as Freda did, Tarrah for now
That's spelled T A R R A H. It was new to me.