Poster for Help!, 1965. Can you tell it's in color? For whatever reason, the Beatles are in a different order than they are pictured on the "Help!" album cover. |
The Beatles in Austria for the filming of Help! |
The Beatles on the Salisbury Plain, where they performed "I Need You" and "The Night Before." |
"Ticket to Ride" single that shows the original title for Help! was Eight Arms to Hold You, which would have been a terrible title for a movie. |
I recently watched the Beatles’ 1965 film Help! again, for about the 6th
time, probably. Help! was the
Beatles’ second movie, after 1964’s A
Hard Day’s Night. Both Help! and A Hard Day’s Night were directed by
Richard Lester, and feature the Beatles’ zany sense of humor. Personally, I
like A Hard Day’s Night more, and I
think it’s a stronger movie. But that being said, Help! is a surrealist pop masterpiece.
Help! is a really
silly movie, but it wears that silliness on its sleeve. Help! knows that it’s being tongue in cheek, and that helps the
movie immensely. I think part of the reason that A Hard Day’s Night and Help! have
lasted is that their sense of humor is one that modern-day audiences can
readily recognize. The humor in these films is based on sarcasm and satire,
which have become the default modes for humor. Help! anticipates many different trends in comedy, from the
joke-a-minute surrealism of Airplane!,
to the pure goofiness of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus.
The plot of Help! concerns
a ring that Ringo was sent by a fan that is actually quite important to a
certain Eastern religious cult that sacrifices whoever is wearing the ring. Of
course, Ringo can’t get the ring off his finger. (Did he try running warm water
over his finger?) This leads to many attempts to steal the ring, and/or kill
Ringo. The action moves from England, to the Alps, back to England, to the
Bahamas, because the Beatles wanted to visit the Alps and the Bahamas. Help! is a zany spoof of James Bond
movies. Help! throws everything and
the kitchen sink at you, and it tries so hard to amuse the viewer that at some
point it just becomes a little exhausting.
The supporting cast is excellent, with veteran character
actor Leo McKern playing Clang, the chief villain. Eleanor Bron plays Ahme, a
member of Clang’s cult who is surprisingly helpful to the Beatles. Spoiler
alert: She has a major crush on Paul. (Um, who didn’t have a crush on Paul
McCartney in 1965?) Also appearing is Victor Spinetti as a high-strung,
paranoid mad scientist, echoing his turn as a high-strung, paranoid TV director
in A Hard Day’s Night. (“I see it all
now, it’s a plot.”) Spinetti’s bumbling sidekick is played by the very funny
Roy Kinnear. Beatles fans should look for Jeremy Lloyd, who plays the tall guy
dancing with Ringo at the nightclub in A
Hard Day’s Night, who has a cameo as a restaurant patron in Help!
The Beatles were smoking a lot of pot during the filming of Help! which meant that they were often
beset by the giggles, and filming their dialogue proved to be a challenge.
Maybe that’s why so many of their lines overlap each other in the finished
film. As always, Ringo is the center of the movie, as he’s the center of every
Beatles movie. Ironically enough, Ringo never sings in a live-action Beatles
movie, as he doesn’t have any songs in A
Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, or Let It Be. (Of course he sings the title song to the cartoon Yellow Submarine.) While A Hard Day’s Night made some attempt to
differentiate the personalities of the Beatles, there’s none of that in Help! None of the group really get any
“solo” scenes the way they did in A Hard
Day’s Night.
The songs in Help! are
fantastic, of course, and they are presented in an interesting way. There’s not
much of an attempt to work them into the storyline, but visually they look
great. One look at all the tanks protecting the Beatles on the Salisbury Plain during
“I Need You” and “The Night Before” makes it clear that this is a bigger budget
operation than A Hard Day’s Night was.
“Ticket to Ride” fulfills the same purpose as “Can’t Buy Me Love” did in A Hard Day’s Night, as an upbeat song
that sees the Beatles goofing off, happy and carefree. For that reason, “Ticket
to Ride” is probably my favorite part of the film.
Help! is obviously
essential viewing for any Beatlemaniac, and the chances are high that you’ll
find it fab and gear.
1 comment:
Frankie Howerd had a part in it, but his scene was left of the cutting room floor. Titter ye not, I'm sure you can find episodes of his series "Up Pompeii" somewhere. :-)
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