Same as it was before it was, Richard Lester directed The Beatles Help!
towards the future of comedy.
Over half a century later,Help!is as fresh as it was before it was.
Wait, Ill tell a lie.
WithoutHelp!there would be noAirplanemovies.
Jon Landis would have hit his peak withKentucky Fried Movie.WithoutHelp!there would be no fucking Spike Lee.
He couldnt get enough of it.
Spike couldnt hide his love away.
Who tries to remove a ring with a wheel?
Thats what they break butterflies on, ask the Rolling Stones.
Thats an in-joke, which is in itself an in-joke inA Hard Days Night.
Even the Royal House of Hanover had the wheel.
Help!came out in 1965.
It was directed by Richard Lester.
The Beatles were the greatest show on the earth.
The Beatles were being called the new Marx Brothers, though Groucho said they were nothing without cigars.
Their innate sense of comedy knew no bounds.
And that wasnt even their day job.
But well get to that later.
Kinnear was Lesters good luck charm.
He wouldnt make a movie without the sensitive, witty actor.
Roys son Rory is currently the best thing on the best show on Showtime.
He plays Dr. Frankensteins creature onPenny Dreadful, not to be confused with Penny Lane.
I wouldnt touch you with a plastic one.
The script involved crime, political scheming and transvestitism.
This was before Molly stayed at home to paint his pretty face.
The Beatles and Epstein rejected it as too risque.
We didnt do it because it was gay.
We werent gay and really that was all there was to it.
It was quite simple, really.
Brian was gay…and so he and the gay crowd could appreciate it.
Now, it wasnt that we were anti-gay just that we, The Beatles, werent gay.
The Beatles acceptedHelp!The screenplay was written by Charles Wood and Marc Behm.
The movie would be shot in color and have a much larger budget.
The rock stars immediately used that as an excuse to visit exotic locales.
Filming began in the Bahamas on February 23, 1965.
Filming finished on April 14, 1965, at Ailsa Avenue in Twickenham.
This was the only time the band ever played on stage in Austria.
The Beatles saidHelp!was inspired by the Marx BrothersDuck Soup.
In the classic anti-fascist comedy, Chico and Harpo play spies.
The biggest spy at the time was Bond, James Bond.
The movies distributor, United Artists, held the rights to the Bond series.
The British Parlophone album cover shows the Beatles spelling out the letters NUJV.
The American Capitol Records cover corrected that to NVUJ.
I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters HELP.
To this day, thousands go without aid because they assumed this was true.
Jeweler, youve failed.
The film wasnt only influential because of its humor.
The director, crew and editors pushed the shots through mirrors, reflected light.
Every frame during the beach scene had hand crafted color filters.
The editors played with jump frames.
The crew was trying to push the look of the film.
Help!was dedicated to Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine.
The Beatles got an MBE for selling corduroy.
Ahmes pink leather suit matched her pink Walther P-38 pistol.
The Beatles are credited with inventing a lot of things.
Their song Ticket to Ride, which will be discussed later, is credited as inventing heavy metal.
John Lennons feedback on I Feel Fine is said to have invented Jimi Hendrix.
Bob Rafaelson referencedHelp!often when directingthe Monkeestelevision series.
But the Beatles also invented the silly walk.
Both Lennon and John Bluthal as Bhuta do extremely silly walks in the movie.
Lennon when hes bouncing around with the carving knife trying to convince Ringo to chop off his finger.
Bluthal when hes following walking in a correct British stance in sandals on the cobblestone streets of London.
Wait Ill tell another lie.
The Beatles also invented the chainsaw massacre.
During filming, the conquering hero rock stars didnt take the acting gig all that seriously.
Im not sure anyone knew the script.
The Beatles didnt have as fun makingHelp!as it would seem.
The Beatles characters could have been played by anyone.
John Lennon toldRolling Stonein 1970 that they felt like like extras in our own film.
The movie was out of our control.
WithA Hard Days Night, we had a lot of input & it was semi-realistic.
I realize now that it was a precursor to Batmans POW!
But Dick Lester never explained that to us.
John Lennon said it was like being a frog in a movie about clams.
That didnt stop Lennon from working with Lester again.
In September of 1966, Lennon was featured as Private Gripweed in Lesters anti-war satireHow I Won the War.
The film was shot in Almeria, Spain, and Lennon wrote Strawberry Fields during production.
I realize, looking back, how advanced it was.
It was a precursor to theBatmanPow!
on TVthat kind of stuff, Lennon toldRolling Stonein 1980.
But [Lester] never explained it to us.
Nobody could communicate with us, it was all glazed eyes and giggling all the time.
In our own world.
The other Beatles and Lester remembered that the film was made in a haze of marijuana.
An engineer asks Boys are you buzzing?
and Lennon quips No I brought the car.
The only way to survive in Hamburg, to play eight hours a night, was to take pills.
The waiters gave you them the pills and drink.
Ive always needed a drug to survive.
They were red from the dope we were smoking.
A hell of a lot of pot was being smoked while we were making the film.
That helped make it a lot of fun, Ringo recounted.
We could have run all the way to Switzerland.
And these were those clean-cut boys!
Dick Lester knew that very little would get done after lunch.
In the afternoon we very seldom got past the first line of the script.
We had such hysterics that no one could do anything.
Dick Lester would say, No, boys, could we do it again?
It was just that we had a lot of fun a lot of fun in those days.
We giggled a lot.
We were all a bit merry and all had our backs to the camera and the giggles set in.
All we had to do was turn around and look amazed, or something.
But every time wed turn round to the camera there were tears streaming down our faces.
In theAnthology, Harrison said the band puffed pot on the plane to the Bahamas.
John did once offer me a joint, Bron said.
And I obligingly tried to take a little puff.
I knew there was some special way of doing it but I dont smoke anyway.
So I took a little puff and then thought, This is so expensive.
I mustnt waste it!
And gave it back to him.
So thats your definition of naive, I think.
Georges sideways glance during Youve Got to Hide Your Love Away adds drama.
The screenplay had a lot of wordplay and the Beatles excelled at playing with words.
But there were no flies on Frank.
He was a responsible citizen with a four foot three wife and child, wasnt he?
So, what about the movie itself?
Help!is a classic.
It is aging well, though the basic premise ofHelp!is kind of passive aggressively racist.
Latin, the producers understand, but not this Eastern stuff.
Instant Karma can hit you right face.
At one point Ahme points out the ring will cling to your finger like the hunger of a child.
Today, the Thuggee cult would be classified as Middle Eastern terrorists.
The easterners also say Ah so a lot.
It was of the time.
The ring is the dreaded secret sacrificial ring of the dread Kaili.
That ring is worn as prelude to an acolytes ascendance.
These are people from a very poor country.
The victim is chosen by a lottery.
All are happy to go.
At the end of the day, the worshipper is slaughtered, jolly, with a knife.
The sacrifice also involves some kind of ritualistic disemboweling.
But the ring is missing from the nubile devotee.
Without the ring, there can be no sacrifice.
Without the sacrifice, there can be no congregation.
Without the congregation no more Klang.
The Indian Beatlemaniacs sister Ahme (Bron) happens to be the high priestess of the cult.
That person could then go happily to Kaili.
Its a little different from the C of E, I think.
I can say no more.
I love the opening sacrifice scene.
Its worthy of Hammer Studios.
This, of course, makes the comedy sharper.
The Beatles were already flirting with dark humor and themes.
Whose name is the Terrible.
Whose name is Baleful.
Whose name is Inaccessible.
Whose name is the Black Mother, Mother of Darkness.
We turn our hearts to Kaili.
Black Mother, gorge on this flesh.
Thats some dark shit.
That could account for some of the Paul is dead mania that followed.
It rides it like a wave crashing on a beach.
Hearing the voices, in all their configurations, was shocking, absolutely shocking.
After all that dark energy, the musicians on the surveillance tape sound triumphant happy and oh so shocking.
The cult learns that their dartboard favorites have this invaluable ring.
These unfamiliar westerners who almost made a western movie.
Has anyone looked in the wash basin?
This is how they should have lived.
Adulation hadnt gone to their head one jolt.
It was even this way in the cartoons.
Besides being rock stars, they were the Bugs Bunnies of Britain.
They had a certain aggression that tweaked authority.
There is another surreal moment when the bike falls after Paul whistles for it.
Paul was the only Beatle who had any acting experience before the band.
Hed had a non-speaking part in a play in high school, so they gave him a silent bit.
McCartney, who was dating the Hammer Studios actress Jane Asher, was self-conscious on film.
The Beatles were aided by the consummate comic support talent of Spinetti and Kinnear.
Paul misses the change in the action players because hes gotten small when the scientists entered the apartment.
Even some of the conversational gags are surreal.
Ringo remembers that the Fire Brigade once got his head out of some railings.
you’re free to see a lot of the world from railings.
The Beatles themselves were natural comedians who knew each others rhythms.
John does a really good Ringo when hes impersonating him on the soccer field.
He captures his body language and even his off rhythms.
Visual gags abound, such as the interrogation scene in the tropical sun.
Surprisingly, we accept that he might.
But we learn, through Ringos growing apprehension that there is more here than meets the eye.
After the bathroom encounter, Ringo get cartoonishly jumpy.
The Austrian Alps scenes were mainly a document of the Beatles learning to ski.
Lester set up cameras, threw skis at the musicians and told them to learn.
The Indian restaurant scene plays out all manner of class and racial commentary.
The dreaded secret ring makes the unionized doorman (Alfie Bass) ask if means the Beatles are Freemasons.
The running gag of the soup comes right out of The Little Rascals, with a little seasoning.
Here we meet another failure.
This is a guy who committed to a bit with enough conviction for a lifetime.
He was an actors actor.
Hes mad I tell you, but Spinetti sells it.
One of the nods to Bond is the crazy instruments of modern espionage technology.
Maxwell Smart talks into his shoes and drops into the CONTROL office through a phone booth.
Here the scientists use a relativity cadenza to slow the Beatles down.
If the plugs adapt properly, it was made at Harvard.
Its the brain drain.
His brain is draining.
Algernon bemoans that he would have been a better scientist if he worked with animals.
His daddy was the master of the house, animals trust me.
I should have been in vivisection.
Mad Scientist Foot tries to remove a ring that was made in India with surplus British laboratory equipment.
you’ve got the option to only stretch a government grant so far.
But not just any finger.
This finger has kept the steady backbeat on a revolution that galvanized the world and profited England greatly.
Patrick Cargill as the superstitious Superintendent, is a broad bundle of British stereotypes.
His lip is entirely stiff but his feet are molded grey clay.
The palace is haunted you know, I darent look.
He chides the pop group as a flash in the pan.
How long do you think youll last?
Lennon counters with Great train robbery.
Like Bugs Bunny, The Beatles get in their cheeky backtalk.
I love when Harrison tells the spy-of-a-thousand-voices that he doesnt sound a thing like Cagney.
But, like all clueless colonialists he has no idea who he is up against.
The Beatles hole up at a well-known Palace and no one knows they are there except each other.
And theyre not even sure about that.
The Beatles saw the comic possibilities of the cowbell before Christopher Walken hostedSaturday Night Liveeven once.
Thats a pretty heavy stunt for a rock star to be doing.
A novelization calledThe Beatles in Help!was written by Al Hine and published by Dell in 1965.
It included the Frankie Howerd and Wendy Richard sequence.
The Beatles loved their in-jokes.
The Beatles never put singles on albums.
They still put the song in the movie that wouldnt be on vinyl untilBeatles 65in the United States.
After all, what are unions for?
Leo McKern is a master comedian.
His timing is impeccable, even without words, he makes anyone a sidekick.
It means nothing, its funny because its funny.
Like how The Beatles never actually worry about the disemboweling.
Thats all gaff, disemboweling.
The Beatles almost featured twoDead EndKids on theirSgt.
Such a sad loss, such a nice suit.
How does the mad scientist know to pull Ringos nose?
It is the Kaili clan thats been nabbed while trying to nab his big neb.
But there they are checking the nose.
And his of all noses.
There goes my knighthood.
Treacherous woman, tremble.
I think Ahme really isnt what she seems.
But, she says it would not be necessary if he were brave.
I think she still holds on to the idea that Ringo should maybe be sacrificed.
The best laid plans
As inA Hard Days Night, Lesters film is aided by its imperfections.
Lennon flinches when he see it and it scurries away.
He was trying to show his famous pluck.
The Bengal man-eating tiger, Roger, was kept behind a glass during the shooting.
The scene sparks the great global encompassing sequence that celebrates Ringos favorite lyricist, Ludwig Van.
The scene is so goofy and yet so infectious.
It encapsulates the power of music and does it while whistling with a tongue in a cheek.
For musicians, this is subliminally surreal.
You shall have fun eh?
Clang asks Lennon, who doesnt consider amusements beyond rhythm guitar and mouth organ.
The Beatles are musicians and anything beyond that is a rest between beats.
Thats why the army surrounds them while they cut two tracks.
Recording outside is a logistical and acoustical nightmare, even on electric guitars.
The songs used in the film were Help!
Is it me or do they sing the name Heidi Klum during the famous Ode to Joy?
The Album
In the movie, The Beatles were given protection while they recorded their newest album.
How did that album turn out?
Its a good thing the record was worth it.
Help!was the fifth studio album by the Beatles.
It was produced by George Martin.
The album put the songs from the movie on side 1 and the non-soundtrack songs on side B.
The title track played with call and response harmonies and was one of Lennons earliest confessional songs.
came out in 65, I was actually crying out for help, he toldRolling Stonein 1970.
Most people think its just a fast rock-n-roll song.
But later, I knew I really was crying out for help.
Anyway, I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help.
The lyric is as good now as it was then.
It was just me singing Help and I meant it, Lennon toldRolling Stone.
Ticket to Ride was an amazingly progressive song.
The lyrics are among the earliest in rock and roll to talk about female independence.
There were exceptions where a beat would be displaced (e.g.
New Orleans R&B) but for the most part, drummers stayed with the basic 4/4 formula.
It changed the sound of rock recordings that came after.
Think John Bonham on any Led Zepplin cut.
Pauls contribution was the way Ringo played the drums, Roberts ended, on a quote.
Yes, it was Paul who came up with that drum pattern.
What was it that first attracted you to me?
So the Beatles invented heavy metal, just likeHelp!inventedThe MonkeesTV show and ultimately MTV.
The album was a continuous march in the musical revolution of the band.
Youve Got to Hide Your Love Away was the first song where the Beatles used studio musicians.
In case you thought Georges gardener recorded the flute part.
McCartney recorded Yesterday as a solo on acoustic guitar.
The string quartet was overdubbed.
It went on to be the most covered song in the history of history.
They also covered Larry Williams Bad Boy and Dizzy Miss Lizzy.
Lennon and McCartney wrote If Youve Got Trouble for Ringo, but he preferred to Act Naturally.
I love the baroque acoustic opening.
Critics didnt likeHelp!as much asA Hard Days Night.
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