Back Beat

Backbeat is the story of the Beatles’ pre-fame days when John, Paul, George, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best played in Hamburg’s wild and seedy red-light district. The film takes a rare and interesting look into the early days of the band’s formation. It focuses particularly on the freindship between Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff), the one-time fifth beetle, and John Lennon (Ian Hart). Sutcliffe was an art school classmate and best friend of Lennon’s who joined the band as a bass player. When the band traveled to Hamburg in 1960, Sutcliffe didn’t keep up; he was more interested in painting and his Bohemian romance with a beautiful German photographer named Astrid Kirchher. Eventually, Sutcliffe quit the band, and a couple of years later he died; his emotionally charged story changes history and shapes a different future for the Beatles.