NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN footage of The Beatles “mucking around” in a makeup studio ahead of a television performance, shot more than half a century ago, was released by Australia’s national film and sound archive Tuesday.

    The 49-second black-and-white silent film clip — which the national archive described as “really rare” — was shot with an 8mm camera belonging to Australian dancer and makeup artist Dawn Swane, who was working at Granada TV in Manchester, Britain, at that time.

    The previously unreleased footage, from Nov. 1, 1965, shows the four members of the legendary band having fun in front of the camera as their makeup is applied.

    “I was in the makeup room. And so we were having some champagne,” Swane, now 83, said in a statement released by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).

    “They took the camera off me and said, ‘This is no way to use a camera,’ and they sort of jiggled it upside down and inside out a bit, and everybody was just mucking around.”

    The clip, along with other home movies, was donated by Swane’s daughter Melinda Doring.

    (SD-Agencies)