Pronouncing the Beatles to be "bigger than Jesus" was never going to endear John Lennon to the God-fearing Republicans who ran America during the mid-60s.

So it's not surprising that the White House took a dim view of it when the long-haired peace-lover from Liverpool started to make a nuisance of himself with radicals like Black Panther chief Bobby Seale.

When the legal voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, the FBI heard that Lennon planned to ruin Nixon's chances of re-election in 1972 by turning young voters against him on a nationwide tour.

Mass demonstrations proved that the gobby celebrity peacenik had plenty of influence among the disenchanted, so J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI's dirty tricks department came up with a spurious deportation order to get Lennon out of the country.

Against the backdrop of civil unrest in America and carnage in Vietnam, talking heads such as Gore Vidal, Born On The Fourth of July author Ron Kovic, and legendary newsman Walter Cronkite help to put Lennon’s post-Beatles life and times in context.

But objectivity is not high on the agenda. There are many who would love to give peace a chance by hiding in a bag or spending a week in bed with the wife, but not all can afford it.

And did the multi-millionaire songwriter not feel the teensiest bit hypocritical about entreating us to "imagine no possessions" from behind that Steinway piano at his beautiful mansion?

Furthermore, Lennon is portrayed as a loving father to young Sean yet no mention is made of his son Julian back in England.

Perhaps it's because the film was made with the cooperation of the world's most famous limpet, Yoko Ono. We're looking at the man through his own rose-tinted glasses.

Filmmakers David Leaf and John Scheinfeld are unlikely to sway anyone’s views on Lennon here, just as nothing Lennon ever did or said had the slightest effect on the 1972 election result.

Nixon won by a landslide.

Elliott Noble