Freddie Mercury Is The Great Pretender

This new Freddie Mercury video is available on DVD and Blu-ray, it is called “The Great Pretender”. Created by the same team behind the acclaimed Queen: Days of Our Lives BBC documentary, The Great Pretender, in similar vein, presents  insight into its subject matter, with previously undiscovered or rarely seen footage and presented for the first time in High Definition. Produced and directed by Rhys Thomas, life-long Queen fan and expert, Rhys has this time turned his attention to the Freddie archive, going back as early as 1976 in search of vintage gems which reveal more than ever before the inside story of Freddie’s life and career and the solo projects he worked on outside of Queen. The extensive archive footage is drawn from rare interviews with Freddie, concerts, video shoots and personal material, much of it being seen for the first time, along with newly filmed contributions from fellow Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, Queen manager Jim Beach, soprano Montserrat Caballé, composers David Arnold and Mike Moran, lyricist Tim Rice, comedian and lifelong fan Matt Lucas and many more.

From it emerges a portrait of a man who was very different to his flamboyant onstage public persona.

Watch the trailer

DVD | Blu-ray | Freddie Mercury | Queen

Among the treasures, The Great Pretender includes for the first time ever Freddie and Rod Stewart singing their demo for “Take Another Piece of My Heart,” an unreleased song from 1984, a snippet of the unreleased Michael Jackson / Freddie Mercury collaboration “There Must Be More To Life Than This”, and Freddie with the Royal Ballet 1979 – never seen in full before. Rhys, whose extensive scouting for lost material turned up a copy of the band’s first TV appearance among the belongings of late comedian Dick Emery, brings to the light Freddie’s earliest filmed interview from 1976 unearthed in Australia and another unseen interview from 1976 filmed by NBC in the USA. Rhys also found 10 cans of Freddie’s 39th Black and White birthday party in Mrs. Henderson’s nightclub in Munich in 1985. Originally filmed for the video for “Living On My Own,” and promptly banned by Freddie’s record company because of its cross-dressing theme, there’s much to be enjoyed in watching Freddie and his friends go full out in their efforts to help Freddie celebrate his last birthday before turning 40.

On top of this, The Great Pretender has a feast of outtakes from the video shoots for “I Want To Break Free,” “One Vision,” “Days of Our Lives,” “I Want It All,” “A Kind Of Magic,” “Princes of the Universe,” “Living on My Own,” Born To Love You,” “Great Pretender,” “Made In Heaven,” and “Who Wants to Live Forever.” As bonus features [that will not make up part of the version to be broadcast by the BBC] the program includes “Freddie Mercury Goes Solo” and an extended interview with Montserrat Caballé.

DVD | Blu-ray | Freddie Mercury | Queen

How to enter the contest – read this! You can win a copy of this Blu-ray DVD. Enter now – just tell us – what is your favorite Queen song and why is it your favorite? This next part is important: Put your answer in the “Message” field of the online entry form! If you don’t do that, you won’t win. Click on this sentence to enter the contest! Contest ends on December 31, 2012.

OWM Facebook | OWM Twitter | OWM Amazon