Phil Spector lets down his hair — or wig — in “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector,” a landmark documentary about the man who created music’s “Wall of Sound.”
Among Spector’s startling revelations is that he’s jealous Bob Dylan has an honorary doctorate, that if Woody Allen hadn’t wed Soon-Yi “I could have introduced him to a lot of women,” and that The Beatles’ “Let It Be” album was “awful” until he got his hands on it.
The jumping-off point of Vikram Jayanti’s film is Spector’s 2009 trial in the shooting death of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson, a crime for which he’s currently serving 19 years to life in prison. But the documentary is most fascinating when Spector sits in front of a white piano in his suburban LA castle and talks about his years as a record producer.
Jayanti mixes the interview with courtroom scenes showing a frail, dejected Spector sitting with his lawyers, hands shaking uncontrollably, with archival footage of performances of Spector-produced songs.
They range from pop hits by girl groups (including the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron”) to Tina Turner to The Beatles. In one amazing clip, 17-year-old Spector plays the guitar and sings backup on the Teddy Bears’ 1958 hit single “To Know Him Is To Love Him.”
Of Turner, Spector says: “I didn’t need to see [her] to know I wanted to sign her. I just wanted an act that would become famous and go on the Ed Sullivan show and destroy The Beatles.”
In his more modest moments, Spector compares himself to Michelangelo, Galileo, da Vinci, Beethoven and Albert Einstein.
Jayanti never asks Spector if he killed Clarkson or if she committed suicide (as the defense claimed), and he never offers a personal opinion about her death.
But the film casts Spector in a sympathetic light. You can’t help feeling sorry for the tormented genius.
vam@nypost.com