Long lost footage of The Easybeats’ British tour of 1967, filmed by Sydney film-maker Peter Clifton, has turned up forty years later after it was thought to be destroyed or missing.
The Age reports that Clifton, a noted rock documentarian who has filmed Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same, as well as video of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and concert films for INXS and Midnight Oil; was following The Easybeats during their trip to the UK back in 1967, filming an Hard Day’s Night-styled rockumentary of the “Friday On My Mind” hit-makers.
The then 21-year-old director spent three weeks as part of the band’s entourage, capturing their antics as they performed their international hits for stage and screen, visited pirate radio broadcasters, played soccer with The Small Faces and performed a traditional Scottish folk song – in kilts (of course).
The finished chronicle, titled Easy Come Easy Go, was a portrait of a band at the height of the popularity that Clifton claims were “bigger in Australia than The Beatles.” Clifton’s 52-minute film was sent to be developed and processed for screening on the ABC, but the negative was damaged in the process, affecting several of the film’s sequences. In attempting to repair the damaged celluloid however, “nobody could ever find the negative or the print,” says Clifton.
Unable to retrieve his lost documentary, the screening was canned, along with any trace of the film’s existence. The Easybeats’ fame lasted another two years before they split up and went their separate ways, while Clifton moved to the UK to continue filming iconic acts like The Beach Boys and the Sex Pistols.
It wasn’t until a tenacious author who was researching the Easybeats for a new book, managed to locate the lost film. Easy Come Easy Go was not only a victim of faulty processing, but in fact, also theft. “‘It turned out somebody stole it and took it to America,” Clifton says.
With what film was left in his possession, Clifton was able to restore a new 35min version of his Easybeats rockumentary, thanks to compiled footage and out-takes from his own collection and additional funding from the National Film and Sound Archive.
The film will be made available for a public screening, 45 years after it’s initially scheduled viewing, at this year’s Sydney Film Festival; along with a documentary covering American soul/folk maverick Rodriguez that opens tomorrow night.
