The iconic actor from A Clockwork Orange kept time with the most iconic entertainers ever, The Beatles.
McDowell took a pit stop to govereet withDen of Geekabout the film and the conversation veered into extra laps.
The actor grew up in Liverpool and got a taste of the early Merseyside Beat first hand.
I went to see them at the Cavern when they were called the Silver Beatles, McDowell fondly remembers.
I think they had just come back from Hamburg.
I was so taken with them and also this cellar.
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The Beatles started in small clubs, like most bands.
The club where they held their local residency has grown in legend, but never in size.
They werent raised that much, maybe six or nine inches off the floor.
That didnt stop the tough Teddy Boys from rocking the house.
The place was packed, jam packed.
The Beatles, who had done, by then, the 10,000 hour thing.
Theyd played so much together.
They were so tight as a band, but they werent yet singing their own stuff.
As I remember, it was mostly covers of Chuck Berry and all that, Little Richard and stuff.
But they were extraordinary.
The future film star had a mosh pit view of the early evolution of rock and roll.
I went back, McDowell says.
They had played on Friday night and I went back for a few months to see them every Friday.
Now they were the Mop Tops.
Obviously Brian Epstein had got hold of them and they were moving.
Within the year they were the biggest band in England and I was listening to them on the radio.
BBC did these live shows from Manchester that had Beatles on it.
The Beatles success was the ultimate local-lads make good story.
It was amazing, McDowell enthuses.
It was terrific and I was thinking oh my god, these arethe guys, you know?
Singularly or in a group.
Of course the great influence of George Martin and all that.
The Beatles broke up at the end of the sixties, but they live on in the McDowell household.
He considers it a personal victory.
My 13 year old was always an Elvis man, McDowell explains.
I kept saying the Beatles and he wouldnt want to know.
Now I see everything on his playlist is the Beatles.
They have to find it themselves.
A father cannot tell them what to do.
He can only suggest, point in a direction and they eventually get there.
In fact, he sang at the school, at a thing the other night, Strawberry Fields.
I thought oh my god, how ironic and bizarre is this?
My 13 year old singing Strawberry Fields.
And he doesnt even know what hes singing about.
Strawberry Fields is an area in Liverpool, its amazing.
Just like Penny Lane.
Roger Cormans Death Race 2050is out now on Netflix, Blu-ray, and DVD.