The Lost Weekend: A Love Story

Beatles fans, all your anger and resentment focused on Yoko Ono is about to be vindicated. It turns out, her influence on John Lennon was maybe even worse than you thought, at least according to May Pang. She ought to know. She was Lennon’s great lost love—and it was Ono herself who got them together. Pang chronicles her 18-month romance with Lennon in Eve Brandstein, Richard Kaufman, & Stuart Samuels’ The Lost Weekend, which has a special nationwide Iconic Events screening this Thursday night.

Nobody denies Pang’s relationship with Lennon, not even Ono. Pang already told her story in her memoirs, whose publishers sent her on considerable publicity tours, as viewers can tell from the talk show footage incorporated into the doc. It all started in 1970, which was a very different era. A teen like Pang could just knock on the door of Apple Records and talk her way into an entry level job. From there, she was hired by Lennon and Ono to be their personal assistant, working on their experimental films nobody ever wanted to watch.

Sensing Lennon was getting a little restless, Ono told Pang to have tryst with Lennon, because she assumed she could control their young assistant. However, a lot more developed between them than a quick and dirty weekend. It turns out, they had real feelings for each other—and Pang was much better for Lennon than Ono ever was.

This film will pretty much damn Ono in the eyes of Beatles fans, because she explicitly explains how Ono tried to isolate John Lennon from his son Julian, while forcing Pang to do her dirty work. In contrast, while he was with Pang, Lennon regularly saw and spoke with his oldest son, as Julian Lennon himself confirms on-screen. In fact, Julian Lennon is one of the major talking heads seen throughout the film, giving Pang credit for maintaining a life-long relationship with both himself and his mother (Lennon’s first wife).

We also hear from archival interview footage that Lennon started to see Paul and Linda McCartney socially again while he was with Pang. Had he stayed with Pang, it is easy to imagine (so to speak) the possibility of a Beatles reunion. Plus, the music he produced during their time together was less didactic and much more fun to listen to. Yet, somehow Ono exerted a Svengali-like hold over Lennon, at least when she was close enough to exert her evil powers of mesmerism, metaphorically speaking.

The Lennon Report: The Death of a Beatle

WABC’s Eyewitness News pioneered the use of so-called “Happy Talk” banter, but the legendary Roger Grimsby gave it an acerbic edge suitable for gritty 1970s New York. It was indeed number one in the largest local market, but WABC producer Alan Weiss had even higher ambitions. Tragedy becomes scoopable opportunity when Weiss is admitted to the same emergency room that labored to save John Lennon’s life. The long dark night of December 8, 1980 is dramatized in Jeremy Profe’s The Lennon Report (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

As several of the real life medical staffers note in the film’s epilogue, this was very definitely pre-Giuliani New York. Roosevelt Hospital (now Mount Sinai West) was located in Midtown West, but at the time it regularly admitted numerous gunshot and stabbing victims each night. It was a relatively prosaic motorcycle accident that landed Weiss in the ER. Despite the pain in his hip, Weiss could not miss the whirlwind of activity surrounding a VIP gunshot victim and he is pretty sure he heard the name John Lennon. However, the doctors and nurses will not confirm anything and they certainly are not about to help him communicate with his newsroom. Yes, it was so much easier keeping things under wraps before the era of smart phones.

Dark and moody, Report is sort of a throwback to the sort of contemporary urban chamber dramas that used to be staples of Golden Age anthology shows like Playhouse 90. Ironically, a story like this is probably too small for television now, so it must be produced as a feature. To his credit, Profe is quite sensitive in his depiction of the real life characters. John Lennon’s features are never shown, nor do we ever really see much of his murderer, besides a few glimpses of his fat ass in passing. Perhaps most significantly, Karen Tsen Lee portrays Yoko Ono with such dignity and vulnerability, she might finally convince Beatles fans to lighten up on her.

Most of the drama centers on Dr. David Halleran, the young doctor on call charged with resuscitating his idol, the nursing staff, and the pesky Weiss. Stef Dawson and Stephen Spinella have some particularly effective and humane moments as Barbara Kammerer RN and pulmonary specialist Dr. Richards Marks, respectively. Walter Vincent and Devin Ratray also supply some welcome bantering rapport as Weiss and his newsroom manager Phil Bernstein, which periodically airs out the film a little, without dispelling the somber mood.

Report is well executed, but it is undeniably small in scope. Frankly, people of good conscience can debate whether Lennon merits such passion play treatment. Yes, he was a Beatle, but he wasn’t Lincoln or Kennedy. Still, Profe and production designer have crafted an evocative time-capsule period piece that will remind those who lived through the era of the time when New York City was facing financial default and just about every man in America planned his week around Monday Night Football. Recommended for old school New Yorkers as a VOD option, The Lennon Report opens this Friday (10/7) in New York, at the Cinema Village.