"Director: Paul McGrath"

• John and Yoko - Year of Peace | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  They were rich and famous loved and respected. And they decided to risk it all for a cause. In 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono embarked on a mission for peace that captured the front pages of newspapers and engaged the collective imagination of the world. Available from 23 September Direct Video Distribution is proud to give peace another chance with the DVD release of `John & Yoko: Year Of Peace' a fascinating chronicle of an extraordinary year. In May of 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono were the world's most notorious couple. Married in Gibraltar three months earlier their honeymoon took a strange and memorable turn. They kept themselves on the front pages of newspapers by kicking off a vocal and visible campaign for world peace. The campaign was wide-eyed and innocent based on a simple self-evident truth: there would be no war if everyone just said no. For seven consecutive days from a bed in Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel the Beatle known as ""The Dangerous One"" called for unity. ""Because we haven't got peace in the seven days doesn't make it a waste of time you know"" Lennon said. ""I believe sincerely as soon as people want peace and they're aware that they can have it they will have it."" Eventually the couple did get out of bed and embarked on a year-long peace campaign which eventually resulted in a meeting of the minds with people such as the respected Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. But John and Yoko's campaign never stopped. There were many rallies protests and manifestos still to come... Compiled from footage recently found in the basement of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation `John & Yoko: Year Of Peace' begins with scenes from the Montreal bed-in and follows Lennon and Ono through the year the period in which the classic 'Give Peace A Chance' was recorded. Directed by journalist Paul McGrath the film captures many of the candid talks from the Montreal stunt including Lennon's interaction with such politically oriented figures as Timothy Leary civil rights activist Dick Gregory and right-wing cartoonist Al Capp. It also features present-day interviews with the often-reserved Yoko Ono; filmmaker Patrick Watson; Allan Rock then a college student now a cabinet minister; Ritchie Yorke Canada's leading rock reporter; concert promoter John Brower and singer Ronnie Hawkins all of whom share their personal recollections of that time. Included among the archival footage featured is the Canadian bed-in; a Montreal radio station broadcasting live from their room and a teenage reporter being allowed access to the former Beatle. McGrath producer Alan Lysaght and their team have seamlessly fused together these various elements to produce an intimate and insightful account of one of the most private public couples in popular culture. Presented in mono audio the DVD version featur

• John And Yoko - Year Of Peace | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Amazing that a nearly hour-long film about a Beatle that contains almost no music could still be worthwhile, but that's the case with John and Yoko's Year of Peace. The year in question is 1969, when the newly married couple staged the notorious "bed-in" at a Toronto hotel to promote their somewhat naive but sincere campaign for world peace; they then moved on to Montreal, where "Give Peace a Chance" was recorded in another hotel room, before returning to Toronto, where Lennon (accompanied by Eric Clapton and others) became the first Beatle to perform in concert without his mates. There's no film of that event here, but there is a great deal of other Lennon footage, revealing him to be utterly honest, unpretentious, gentle and approachable. Ono and others who were there recall the events in interesting interviews conducted around the time of this 2000 documentary, but it's the scenes from 69 that make this an invaluable document. --Sam Graham