This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife.
My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP).
JF: We’re going to talk about some of that equipment – it’s all been changed and made quite a difference to the way news is covered I’d imagine, so we’ll talk about that in a while. Were you there when the Beatles came to Australia?
MP: Mmm. Yeah, I was covering the Beatles from their arrival. I actually had the drummer sitting in Essendon after he got sent back to England and Ringo Starr arrived here.
JF: How did you get there? Were you tipped off that he was there?
15/06/1964. Jimmy Nicol, stand in drummer for Ringo Starr, waits for his plane at Essendon Airport – Photo Modris Pilens
“It is one of the most poignant rock and roll photos of all time. Jimmy Nicol, the stand-in drummer for Ringo Starr at the start of The Beatles’ 1964 world tour, sitting all alone at the departure lounge at Essendon Airport, waiting for his flight home to England.” – Craig Cook, Adelaide Advertiser 11-June-2014
MP: No, we knew that he was going so nobody else was interested in him because everybody was interested in the Beatles. So I just went up to Essendon and got a couple of feet of him sitting there. Silent footage. Very interesting.
You could say that because when I first came to Melbourne from Tasmania, I worked at Electrolux which is a factory building vacuum cleaners. And the production manager of the department I was working in *was Dick Lean? Dick Lean was the owner of Festival Hall. So when the Beatles arrived – at that time I’d already been working with the camera – we applied for access to Beatles.
So Dick says ‘Oh, Morrie. Oh yeah no worries, let him come, that’s fine you know. Except that he can’t shoot anything more than about 3 minutes for copyright, you know. But it’s okay, it’s fine with me.’ Because they never actually filming it for themselves, for release or what have you, so basically 3 minute, 4 minute grabs of Beatles everywhere. On the stage, with the girls screaming and panting and lining the street outside, you know. It was quite an interesting little thing.
JF: That was really the first time we’d seen a bit of hysteria in Melbourne for pop stars – would it have been?