It's an old (from 1992) BBC documentary, but I'd not seen this until a friend emailed me the link. At the time it was the 25th anniversary of the record, and there had been very, very few records that had maintained their appeal for so long. There still aren't a lot of them, but in 1992 it was almost unheard of.
 
All of the surviving (at the time) Beatles are interviewed, as well as George Martin (who contributes the most interesting comments) and various other contributors, even Brian Wilson. Curiously, Geoff Emerick is missing.
 
The film includes a bit of a largely-unheard early recording of "Strawberry Fields", the first song recorded for Sgt. Pepper but wasn't included on the album. Martin is playing the original 4-track and best of all, soloing individual tracks. Good stuff. The song had been nixed by Brian Eppstein, showing his predilection for bad choices (he's the reason the Rolling Stones became millionaires before the Beatles did).
 
There's some good trivia sprinkled in: the crowd noise at the start was recorded at a Dudley Moore performance. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZdTtOLoPsQ&feature=youtu.be
 
The BBC revisited the subject a couple decades later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-tMEFLgxso This one's interesting because it documents the making of a Sgt. Pepper tribute album, engineered by Geoff Emerick and recorded through the original 4-track board to the original 4-track decks. Interesting seeing guys who are accustomed to the digital process being forced to get back to the basics. "It took us 20 takes! We'd never done that before."
 
My friend also sent me a link to a making-of video for Abbey Road, but I haven't watched it in its entirety yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or0aEmkqlCI&feature=youtu.be
 
 

Thanks Bit, I'll watch this. It sounds interesting.
 
J

Hi,
 
I'll watch these ... should be fun. I like hearing George Martin, and always thought that without his musical acumen, I do not think that the Beatles could have become as good as they did. By comparison, the RS were richer, but they did not have a musical direction, and neither were they interested in making sure their music was "better" and it just became a string of hits and nothing else, and all albums had 3 cuts and the rest (so to speak!) ... kinda paled in comparison. I thought, the Beatles were far superior to that!
 
I don't dislike the RS, there is room for both anyway, and I do think that the attitude that Mick and Keith provide is an important factor for the life of Rock music that developed during their time, considering how quaint and not exactly exciting, it had been for some time, until Elvis came around, and even then, his stuff was cut up senseless, including in movies and TV, to the point, you never met the person behind the star.
 
It all counts, I guess, you could say! But my appreciation for the Beatles is probably more to do with the cleverness and clarity of the wording, and how the music exemplified that, which to me makes them the Shelley, to the RS's Byron ...

Thank you!
 

Nice one, watching it now.

I had recorded the Pepper one on VHS back then - The Beatles were practically all I listened to back then and every little bit of info, clip or photo I could find was precious. 
 
Haven't seen the Abbey Road one though - this should be interesting! Thanks for sharing!

There will never be enough Beatle stuff to watch! The last video on Abbey Road was mainly taken from Anthology which I own and have watched a hundred times. Now to the others. Thanks Dave!

clintmartin
There will never be enough Beatle stuff to watch! The last video on Abbey Road was mainly taken from Anthology which I own and have watched a hundred times. Now to the others. Thanks Dave!

I figured out as much. 
 
Remember a documentary called "The Complete Beatles"? I must have watched it a thousand times.

 
That, along with a one-hour documentary called Imagine: John Lennon, the aforementioned Sgt. Pepper documentary and Lennon's NY City Show.
 
And then the Anthology thing came out. 

The making of Sgt Pepper I have never seen. It's very cool to see the 3 remaining Beatles participating in it. That was a very, very rare thing.
 

clintmartin
The making of Sgt Pepper I have never seen. It's very cool to see the 3 remaining Beatles participating in it. That was a very, very rare thing.
 

Which can't happen any more...