Paper digs up details on Ohio judge who went on "Beatles rant" back in 1964

A film clip of a middle-aged Ohio judge decrying the moral depravity of the Beatles and the terrible behavior they triggered in teenage girls is amusing to watch today, and it generates a lot of hits on YouTube.

But, who was this guy? And how did this film get made? The Cincinnati Enquirer investigates:

The full clip – it's almost four minutes and is black-and-white – doesn't identify the speaker. But it is Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Benjamin Schwartz, who held that post from 1957 until his retirement in 1974 and was known for speaking out about problems facing youth. Some of his actions were controversial, but he was also a respected community leader during his tenure. (He died in 1982 at age 78.)

...By turns lecturing, pleading and foreboding, he bemoans the event: "These girls went into a coma," he objects. "They ranted, they fainted. Their eyes were glassy. Some pulled their hair out. Some tore their dresses. They threw notes of a very undesirable nature on stage. Some girls after the performance kissed the stage. Some kissed the very seats in which the Beatles had sat."
And then he makes this strange analogy: "I believe a dictionary definition of a Beatle is a bug. Of course, bug also means being crazy. I don't think the Beatles are bugs … (but) I think the parents are bugs to let their children go to a production of this kind…"

And he beseeches his intended audience – presumably parents of teenagers – to not let anything like this happen again. "I think we can all agree the show was not good. Why must we have it?"

...there are as many questions as answers about why Schwartz filmed it, but it appears that a defunct Denver company called Barbre Productions was trailing the Beatles 1964 U.S. tour, possibly for a planned (and unauthorized) documentary.

The project turned out badly, according to the book "Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy Volume One – 1957-1965" by John C. Winn. He tells how the Beatles became fed up with Barbre at the Sept. 12 Jacksonville concert, and their press officer told the crowd the group wouldn't perform unless its team left. "The bluff worked and the crowd began chanting, 'Out! Out!'" Winn writes.

Here's the clip: