Peter Viney's Blog

Help!
1965

Directed by Richard Lester
Produced by Walter Shenson
Screenplay by Marc Behm and Charles Wood
Story by Marc Behm
Cinematography by David Watkin

CAST:
The Beatles – The Beatles
Leo McKern – Clang
Eleanor Bron – Ahme
Victor Spinetti- Foot
Roy Kinnear- Algernon
John Bluthal- Bhuta
Patrick Scargill – Superintendent
Alfie Bass – doorman
Warren Mitchell- Abdul
Peter Copley- Jeweller
Bruce Lacey- Lawnmower
Mal Evans – the swimmer

Uncredited appearances by Jeremy Lloyd, Dandy Nichols. Sections with Frankie Howard and with Wendy Richards were cut.

The 60s Retrospective series

Released 29 July 1965, UK, and August in the USA.

This review was done directly after A Hard Day’s Night review. Same director, Richard Lester. Same producer: Walter Shenson. Same Beatles caricatures.

Not much time had passed between the films, with their premieres a mere 54 weeks apart. Lester had done The Knack in between. The Beatles had experienced a massive escalation in Beatlemania, though the ultimate peak would be just as this film was released in the USA. They were not in a good place, and John Lennon’s title song says it all. If it can be said that The Beatles had a ‘weakest album’ it had been the one in-between, Beatles For Sale. Seven cover versions out of fourteen tracks indicates their lack of time and energy. OK, even a “weaker” Beatles album had Eight Days A Week (very much the same thought as A Hard Day’s Night), I’ll Follow The Sun, Baby’s In Black and I’m A Loser. Quite possibly songs were saved for Help! which has only two cover versions out of fourteen tracks.

The screenwriting team was Marc Behm, an American domiciled in France, and Charles Wood, who had just done The Knack with Lester and was to go on to do How I Won The War. I assume that Wood was the professional brought in to help get Marc Behm’s story onto the screen, though Behm had written Charade in 1963. It seems that Wood’s task was getting the English dialogue right, and he was given just ten days to do it.

The story was the main problem. The plot about rubies and mysterious rings would have been rejected by a Carry On film producer as too weak and too silly. Behm had originally pitched the story to Peter Sellers no doubt thinking that funny Indians with funny accents and rolling wobbly heads might appeal to Sellers … again. Now Peter Sellers made some incredibly forced and daft films, but even he rejected it. Goodness gracious me! IMDB Trivia suggests Sellers was then offered the part of Clang in Help! but declined to play second fiddle even to The Beatles.

There are lines like this:

Paul: Easterner with greasy feet speak with fork tongue

What a difference to perception of racism fifty-five years has made. Richard Lester was pleased with the dialogue.

Richard Lester: The dialogue is more complex (than A Hard Day’s Night) because we were working with an almost surreal writer in Charles Wood, who’s a wordplay specialist … which they could all manage. John was writing books in this style. But it needed more concentration.

I must have seen Help! very soon after it came out. I was hugely disappointed running to shocked at how inept the storyline was. Colour hadn’t helped. The saving grace was the songs. Later, directors such as Martin Scorsese, and film students, have praised Richard Lester’s filming and cutting in Help! extravagantly, but I never noticed that at the time.

I’ll re-quote Paul McCartney from my A Hard Day’s Night review:

Paul McCartney: (A Hard Day’s Night) was the only colour it could have been, it would have been crap in colour. They gave us colour for Help! and it wasn’t anywhere near as good a film.
Quoted in Barry Miles: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now

Having made a debut gross of £13 million from the first film, United Artists just a little more than doubled the budget … to £400,00.

THE TITLE

Walter Shenson: The same problem existed with Help! as with A Hard Day’s Night. We started the movie without a title. This time the working title was The Beatles No. 2. We just didn’t know what to call it and someone came up with an idea that seemed pretty good, which was Eight Arms To Hold You. After we thought about it, we felt it sounded corny. I think it was Dick Lester’s wife who suggested we call it Help!

So eventually they landed on Help! as the credits song and film title. A John Lennon lyric. The second in a row.

John Lennon: I meant it. It’s real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different and it makes me secure to know that I was aware of myself then. It was just me singing ‘Help!’ and I meant it.

THE REST OF THE CAST

Victor Spinetti was in his second of three Beatles films, moving on from the rattled TV Director in A Hard Day’s Night to Foot, the mad scientist, in this. Spinetti recalls George Harrison telling him:

George Harrison: You’ve gotta be in all our films. If you’re not in them, me mum wouldn’t come and see them, because she fancies you.”

Leo McKern went on to be ‘No. 2’ in The Prisoner then Rumpole ofThe Bailey for years.

This was Eleanor Bron’s film debut before going on to Alfie, Bedazzled, Women in Love and The National Health. Her TV roles in pre-Python material like the three David Frost late night programmes added a surreal edge to her scenes.

Warren Mitchell and Dandy Nicholls (she is the uncredited neighbour, and the landlady in Lester’s The Knack) went from Help! directly to the Comedy Playhouse pilot for Till Death Us Do Part. He would forever after be Alf Garnett.

John Bluthal had the cameo as the car thief in A Hard Day’s Night. Here he became Bhuta.

Roy Kinnear was starting a long association with Richard Lester from How I Won The War to The Three Musketeers series.

PROBLEMS WITH LINES?

The Beatles did not like Marc Behm’s script:

Barry Miles: Whereas they had worked closely with Alun Owen on A Hard Day’s Night, feeding him lines that could be used in dialogue, there was no such collaboration with Marc Behm, who just gave them a series of off-the-peg wisecracks that could have been said by anyone, The group’s resentment at having to mouth these lines can be seen on screen.
Barry Miles: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now

Paul McCartney: It was wrong for us. We were guest stars in our own movie.

Victor Spinetti: Help! was a straitjacket of a film for The Beatles. A Hard Day’s Night was basically the truth about them coming to London. In Help! they had to act out parts, and they weren’t really happy about it.

Paul McCartney has admitted that they took little interest in the scripts being pushed at them.

Paul McCartney: We just browsed through (the script) really, rather than taking it seriously. We didn’t bother learning our lines. I’m sure we were reacting against a lousy script. Basically, we lost the plot, but I don’t think there was much of a plot to start with. It was this endless, ‘The ring must be found! Kali must be appeased!’ Maybe that’s why we didn’t enjoy it I’ve always felt we let it down a bit, but we just didn’t care and that would fit more readily with a poor script.
Quoted in Barry Miles: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now

John Lennon: The next one (Help!)  was just bullshit, because it really had nothing to do with the Beatles. They just put us here and there. Dick Lester was good, he had ideas ahead of their times, like using Batman comic strip lettering and balloons.
Rolling Stone interview, December 1970

Ringo Starr: I hate the idea of being the central figure again this time. I didn’t want to be anything special in the last one, nor in this one. But I didn’t have a say in it. I suppose if they’d been chasing a boot in the film’s story, it might have been one of the others who had this part. But it’s obvious, if it’s rings, it’s Ringo.
Melody Maker 27 February 1965

They were stuck with the limited-dimension characters created for the first film: Paul, glass at least half-full and bubbling; John glass half-empty with acidic brown dregs at the bottom; George – Let us quietly contemplate the transparency of the glass; Ringo – Cheers, I’ll have another of the same.

The contribution they did make was to suggest locations they fancied … the Caribbean and the Alps, places they’d never visited and which were unlikely to be on any concert tour. That was the front story. Pete Brown was their business manager. In The Love You Make he describes The Beatles advisors setting up a Bahamas company for tax reasons, and then they used The Bahamas as a filming location to give the enterprise a veneer of legitimacy.

Richard Lester: It came from on high … from Brian Epstein, who said ‘It’s really, really important that we shoot in the Bahamas.’

The charter flight out carried a unit of seventy-eight actors and crew, and George Harrison said The Beatles smoked reefer all the way.

Melody Maker: There was a roar of laughter from all four when they were asked if they could remember their lines, or if they knew the complete story. Ringo’s brief sentence was unprintable. John, Paul and George looked at each other in disbelief before creasing with laughter.
Melody Maker 27 February 1965

They only glanced at lines before a scene. Sometimes they were idiot-boarded (the lines are held up on a board next to the camera and you read) or Richard Lester said the line aloud and they repeated it. I’ve done that. We employed a marvellous old actor to play a tramp in our Mystery Tour video. He looked great but couldn’t remember a line for three seconds. He also couldn’t follow an idiot board due to extreme short sight. In the end I stood next to the camera and said every line, he repeated it, and we cut me out in editing. I recall that he had great difficulty even repeating lines accurately. It wasn’t even improvising them. A lot of his repetitions were meaningless attempts to parrot. (His agent later sent a sweet note saying he especially wanted to thank his “dialogue coach”.) And, the thing is, he was not stoned …

The Beatles had been introduced to pot by Bob Dylan in August 1964. Although they’d been fond of ‘pills’ in Hamburg and afterwards, they say they had never smoked marijuana before.

John Lennon: The movie was out of our control … Dick Lester didn’t tell us what it was about. I realise, looking back, how advanced it was …  we were smoking marijuana for breakfast during that period. Nobody could communicate with us. It was all glazed eyes and giggling all the time.
Anthology, The Beatles

Paul McCartney: We showed up a bit stoned, smiled a lot and hoped we’d get through it … I don’t know how Dick Lester ever put up with us, but he somehow had to make a movie under those circumstances.
Anthology, The Beatles

Ringo Starr: If you look at pictures of us, you can see a lot of red-eyed shots. A hell of a lot of pot was being smoked making that film. 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.
Anthology, The Beatles

George Harrison: We were in stitches … hysterics laughing – and I think we pushed Dick Lester to the limits of his patience. And he was very, very easy-going; a pleasure to work with
Anthology, The Beatles

Looking at the chronology in Q magazine’s The Beatles: Band of The Century, John and George experienced LSD for the first time after the Bahamas and Austria film sequences in late February and early March, and before resuming shooting at Twickenham Studios in late March.

The Beatles may have been royally stoned, but let’s be fair. Virtually no films are shot chronologically, but this was especially hard. If we take the locations in narrative order: 1 London – 2 Austria 3 London /Salisbury Plain 4 Bahamas, the filming sequence was 4 – 2 – 1 – 3. If you were only reading the script carefully on a daily basis you’d be lost.

Then not only the story is off, but the narrative line is obscure. I still can’t work our what Ahme (Eleanor Bron)’s real allegiance was. Nor am I really sure why the scientists, Foot and Algernon are involved in the chase to such an extent or even why.

THE PLOT

Ringo Starr: It’s basically a chase film. I get chased by all these lunatics and my three pals save me. 
1965

Pastiche, especially of James Bond films, runs right through it.

Ahme (Eleanor Bron) and Clang (Leo McKern) notice the ringless finger

Before the credits: Clang (Leo McKern) is a high priest of a sinister Indian cult, and is about to sacrifice a woman to their eight-armed goddess Kali (hence they say the abortive title Eight Arms To Hold You had two meanings).  Except that as we see later, the goddess has TEN arms. Clang is assisted by the high priestess, Ahme (Eleanor Bron).

They notice that the sacrificial victim is not wearing the ruby sacrificial ring. We see her watching The Beatles projected on film.

The Beatles sing Help! in black and white over the credits, while Clang throws brightly coloured darts at their images, presumably as watched by the potential victim.

Clang, Bhuta (John Bluthal) and Ahme. (Ah, me!)

I’m not sure even now how they knew ring was with The Beatles. Anyway, Ahme produces their BOAC tickets.

The first appearance of The Beatles in colour was my favourite bit of the entire film when I first saw it. The Beatles emerge from a Rolls-Royce watched by the neighbour (Dandy Nicholls) and go into four separate terrace houses.

1st Neighbour: lovely lads, and so natural …
2nd Neighbour: … and still the same as they was before they was.

The best lines in the film, for me.

We cut away to find inside the four small terraced houses all been combined into one luxurious pad on the inside.  Ordinary Liverpool lads on the outside, lap of luxury inside. John is reading his own book, A Spaniard In The Works.

I wrote this one …

 Paul has a large cinema electric organ. They have a sandwich dispensing machine and drink vending machines for food. This would be a musician idea of luxury too- I recall several rock group vans parked round an outdoor cold milk vending machine at 1 a.m., which even better had a chocolate bar vending machine next to it. One on the A4 through Bath. Another on the main road out of Southampton.

It fits the shift from the first film, we’re seeing The Beatles world as imagined by the fans. I think of it whenever Paul is on TV doing his ‘still just a lad from Liverpool’ thing. I preferred the Ringo interview where he was asked if he wanted to go back to live in Liverpool, and he explained that Malibu was somewhat more pleasant.

Anyway, Ringo has the sacrificial ring, which had been sent to him by the intended victim who is a fan of the Beatles.

The chief priest, Clang, his chief thug, Bhuta, and high priestess Ahme arrive in London to get the ring back. They have a bunch of acolytes. Ideally, they’ll get the ring back, go home and sacrifice the young girl.

This is where we get those innovative screen titles … we’re told there will be five attempts to steal the ring. First while Ringo is asleep. Then with posing as a Harrods delivery man to buy it.

Paul on his way to the Rolls. Clang behind with Harrods electric van.

Then Ringo posts a letter, only to get his finger grabbed from within. The post box toddles away. The fourth attempt involves lots of water and sinks breaking off the wall in a public toilet. I didn’t quite get how that was supposed to work. For the fifth one, they’re in the recording studio doing You’re Going To Lose That Girl. Ringo is puffing a cigarette while drumming, and onscreen the smoking had upset Americans over the previous film. That didn’t worry them.

After the five numbered (big number on the screen) failed attempts to steal the ring back without Ringo noticing, the Indians confront him in an Indian restaurant. Alfie Bass is the doorman. Inside there is a funny fakir (say it quickly) on a bed of nails, as we imagined in 1965 that Indians liked to sleep. Elsewhere a further funny Indian is standing on his head. The funny band in the restaurant is Indian playing a funny raga-fied version of A Hard Day’s Night. Let’s not leave any Indian cliché missed. There is a funny belly dancer.

Paul and belly dancer

Paul sees Ahme and dances with her instead, thus converting her to their cause (I think).

Ahme: Your friend is in mortal danger!

While they’re dancing she sees Clang, now posing as a funny Indian waiter, is about to take a chop at Ringo with a large cleaver knife.

George, John, Clang and Ringo.

If they can’t get the ring and sacrifice the girl, then they’ll have to sacrifice the wearer. Trouble is, the victim has to be painted red first. Ringo now knows that he will be the next sacrifice if he does not give up the ring. However, the ring is stuck and he cannot take it off. The Beatles are chased around London by members of the cult.

A jeweller fails to cut the ring off. In the background, George is shoplifting madly. (IMDB Trivia says that John splashed £8000 on jewellery in between filming this scene).

The band go to a mad scientist, Foot (Victor Spinetti) and his assistant, Algernon (Roy Kinnear).  Mad and scientist are a strong British comedy collocation. They hook Ringo up to a machine and pass lots of rays through him.

Ringo wired up to mad scientist equipment

Ahme turns up, dressed entirely in pink leather with a matching pink gun, hoping to get the ring once it’s off.  Her infatuation with Paul is growing.

Ahme is strangely moved

When his equipment has no effect on the ring, Foot decides that it must have incredible properties and that he must somehow acquire it.

Back to the Beatles street. Clang emerges from a manhole with the cover on his head. They are watching!

Ahme and George

Ahme turns up. The Beatles are doing a song, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away. We cut to the bedroom to see the flautist sitting to add his part. He is dressed as a funny Irishman sitting on a grass carpet. We saw him earlier in the house. Surreal, and perhaps they had run out of funny Indian costumes

Foot and Algernon are out in the street pushing a pram.

Ahme has a shrinking solution in a  syringe. George faints when he sees it:

John: Now see what you’ve done with your filthy Eastern ways!
Ahme: No! It is Clang, the high priest, who is filthy in his Eastern ways.
John: How do we know you’re not just as filthy, and sent by him to nick the ring by being filthy when you’ve lulled us with your filthy Eastern ways?
Paul: What filthy ways are these?

Paul gets the shot and shrinks to the size of a cigarette and hides in an ashtray.

Honey, I Shrunk the bass guitarist. Only a gum wrapper top protect Paul\’s modesty

Bhuta and Clang break in and confront Ringo by the vending machines, covering him with red paint in preparation for sacrifice.

At this point, I’m losing the plot quite severely. Anyway, Foot and Algernon burst in with a gun, hoping to get the ring once it’s been removed. Paul springs back to normal size.

Enter Algernon and Foot. Comic collectors have noted the carefully curated collectible comics spread out on Paul’s Wurlitzer cinema organ.

We see Clang and his henchmen incongruously travelling away, disconsolate, on a crowded tube train.

The band runs to the Austrian Alps, though whether this was an escape in the plot, or a skiing holiday or an attempt to make a rock video in the plot, who knows? It was a bit of a holiday for the boys, to the extent that George Martin came along for the skiing. He broke his ankle the first day.

Is that a Liverpool scarf? I thought Paul was an Everton supporter. Or Austrian flag colours?

Austria was mainly an excuse for lots of skiing, skating and running about scenes, mainly the ones the film is known by. It was a director’s dream, all that white snow and black clothes with flashes of colour.  In the music sequence The Beatles ski under an onscreen musical stave, which was applauded as another comic book reference. In fact it was superimposed to hide ugly telegraph poles. There are a plethora of arty shots. I liked the champagne picnic sitting on the snow. The sequence of skiing and snowmobiles is accompanied by Ticket To Ride. None of them had skiied before.

Richard Lester: We put three cameras on them and said ‘Learn how to ski’ and we filmed everything that happened. It all happened for real.

They are pursued. Algernon and Foot are watching from a ski lift. Clang is disguised as a snowman. They narrowly escape a trap with curling iron bombs , thanks to Ahme, who holds up a STOP sign as they ski towards the bomb. Clang has presumed that if he can’t cut the finger off, blowing Ringo to smithereens should get the ring off.

There’s a shot of them dressed in Austrian military band uniforms. Was this the germ of the idea for Sergeant Pepper?

Beyond the call of duty for a road manager?

To keep it whacky, a channel swimmer emerges from the ice seeking the white cliffs of Dover. He will reappear in The Bahamas, still looking. This was Beatles road manager Mal Evans.

Scotland Yard

We get quite a bit of the music. Back home, they ask for protection from a police superintendent (Patrick Cargill) at Scotland Yard.  Cargill excelled at playing establishment figures. I still can’t see what the big deal is about the on-screen scene titles: Scotland Yard, Buckingham Palace. The dastardly Indians are crammed into a phone box. An arrow comes through the window and hits the notice board. It has a balloon full of red paint attached. Another arrow bursts it. 

Salisbury Plain. It looks nice here, lads. Shall we come back the next time we make a film?

They’re off to Salisbury Plain to film songs,  I Need You and The Night Before in much the same location as the Magical Mystery Tour video sequences in fact. There’s a reason for that. Because it was shot on a sealed military training area, there were no fans interrupting the work.

They are now being chased by tanks full of cult members. Red paint explodes around them. Clang directs operations from a vintage car, which has the cult’s flag, and Clang is now dressed as an army padre. They escape into a haystack with Ahme.

Clang directs bazooka fire

So they are hidden in Buckingham Palace (filmed at Cliveden). Their card game is interrupted by Foot and Algernon, dressed as guardsmen with gas marks. They push a red hose with some sort of knock out gas through a picture but our intrepid lads manage to shove the hose out of the window where it knocks out the royal guards. The hose seems to contain red gas? I thought that was Clang’s trademark. Never mind. Maybe it was Clang. A plump guardsmen in a gas mask could be Kinnear or McKern after all.

This was the scene which the participants have described as their most stoned one. So much so that it took many attempts.

The scientists have also managed to get their ray gun in (why? It didn’t work in the laboratory!) So there’s a further attack in the corridor.

They go to the pub and try to persuade Ringo to have his finger amputated.

The Beatles haircuts were between phases. Not at their best.

The publican is that wily Clang in disguise once more! Ringo descends through a trap door to the cellar where he is confronted by a Bengal tiger. Meanwhile the superintendent has arrived with policemen and the three other lads explain that Ringo has disappeared.

Police superintendent: Good lord, it’s Rajah, the famous Bengal man-eater who escaped from London Zoo this morning.
John: Good Lord! So it famous is!
Police superintendent: Oh, don’t worry, he’s absolutely harmless. All you have to do is sing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from the famous Ninth Symphony in D minor.
John:  Of course! Why didn’t you think of that you twit

Then they flee to the Bahamas, disguised at the airport, followed by the police officers, the scientist, and the cult members. Clang has an airship, and arrives to inspect a uniformed guard of his men. The superintendent arrives in a small private plane, to be met by full size Pan-Am airline steps that tower over the plane.

I still can’t see the major deal about these onscreen titles.

Alright, lads. You know one day they’ll make MTV videos in places like this. Playing Another Girl.

With bikini clad girls too! Or how Paul got a hernia.

The music sequences, as in Austria, are a field day for camera filters and cunning shots.

Or maybe Lester realized that was the way the Beatles were seeing the sky in their current state. However, Lester was well ahead of the game in finding the future “rock video” shots:

After Ringo is nearly captured, the police have the other Beatles pose as him in order to ensnare the cult members. There’s lots of bike riding and running about. One of the Trivia bits is that the film crew challenged the Beatles to a running race, sure that their stoned opponents would lose. The Beatles won – they were so used to running away from fans in a group.

The scientists catch Ringo and bundle him into the boot of a bright pink Hillman Minx. My father had exactly the same model (his had white wall tyres), and they never came in this colour in England. George climbs on the roof to stay with them.

The movie lore on this sequence is that the stunt double was supposed to be George, but George was keen to see what it felt like, so asked to do the scene himself. However, he was worried about the car crashing into a tree at the end … and obviously he was not allowed to do that.

Foot takes Ringo aboard a boat where he intends to cut off his finger to get the ring. Ahme rescues Ringo by giving the scientist the magic shrinking solution in exchange.

Algernon (Roy Kinnear) and Foot (Victor Spinetti) get the shrinking liquid from Ahme.

The two of them dive into the ocean to escape, but Ringo cannot swim and they are both captured by Clang and his followers. The He can’t swim line was added during shooting. Because he couldn’t.

The wily Orientals have managed to tow the eight ten-armed Kali statue to The Bahamas.

In the end, when Ringo is painted red and about to be sacrificed on the beach, the ring suddenly comes off. He puts the ring on Clang’s finger, who is then chased by his own cult as the song “Help!” plays.

The end credits are … surprisingly … instrumental, and again Dick Lester goes to town on the arty shots. These are credited on screen to Robert Freeman:

CINEMATOGRAPHY & MUSIC VIDEO

This is where the film won, and had a major influence over the next few years. It was cinematographer David Watkins’ first colour film.

Richard Lester: He was more willing to take a gamble than any cameraman I’ve worked with … that willingness to push the look of film was quite wonderful.

After the ski sequences, Lester handed all the film to the editor, and asked him to cut it together with a free hand, because he wanted a fresh eye, and that’s what was used.

There was painstaking post-production and Lester has described how they took the film, two frames at a time, put them on a light box and played with colour filters. They did that with every shot in the film.

In the two Beatles films, Lester initiated most of the ideas for filming songs. First, as a performance, and second as a background to other action by the artistes.

Richard Lester: Some time after, I was sent a parchment scroll from MTV declaring that I was the father of MTV. I immediately cabled back and demanded a blood test.

THE BLU-RAY

It’s an impeccable transfer with extras and a booklet by Richard Lester and by Martin Scorsese.

From the cutting room floor: Frankie Howard, Wendy Richard, Paul McCartney.

Most fascinating is the story of the large cut scene, which took place at Sam Ahab’s drama school (Sam Ahab is ‘Bahamas’ backward). It featured Frankie Howard as the teacher and Wendy Richard (Come Outside with Mike Sarne on disc … a UK #1 single, then Are You Being Served, Eastenders)  as the drama student, Lady Macbeth. Frankie Howard was highly serious about his work as so many comedians are, and was appalled at The Beatles’ attitude. This was one scene where Lester had to read the lines for them. Howard was incensed. Wendy Richard didn’t know until she arrived for the premiere that it had been cut. Cruel.

OVERALL

Martin Scorsese wrote the blu-ray sleeve notes. He is excited by Lester’s technique.  I’m glad I read that because I settled to appreciate the visuals and colour, which are stunning, original and initiated much rock video filming.

To me, sadly, the story is so abysmal and dire that it’s Gonks Go Beat with a bigger budget and (obviously) much better songs. Playing Indians with brown face make up is no longer acceptable. The word racist gets bandied around too freely nowadays, but in spite of the fifty odd year gap, it does stick to this film. Consider John Lennon’s one word appraisal, crap. John was always over the top in negative appraisals, but he had a point on both the story and dialogue,

COMMENTS 

Exhausting attempt to outdo A Hard Day’s Night in lunatic frenzy, which goes to prove that some talents work better on low budgets. The humour is a frantic cross between Hellzapoppin, The Goons, Bugs Bunny and the shade of Monty Python to come. It looks good but becomes too tiresome to entertain.
Helliwell’s Film Guide

It’s a fiasco of farcical whimseys that are thrown together. The boys themselves are exuberant and uninhibited in their own genial way. They just become awfully redundant, and – dare I say – dull.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times, August 1965

SOUNDTRACK

Original British LP

As with A Hard Day’s Night the new songs from the film come first on the album, topped and tailed by the singles, Help! and Ticket To Ride. Apart from Help! (Paul credits its composition 70:30 in favour of John) all the others were written and recorded before filming.

Help! Belgian 45 in picture sleeve. From The Beatles Singles box set, 2019

The “other seven ” on the LP include the two covers, Act Naturally and Dizzy Miss Lizzy but also include Yesterday and I’ve Just Seen A Face, two powerful compositions that didn’t make the film. Richard Lester got thoroughly fed up with Paul continually playing around with the Yesterday melody (then called Scrambled Eggs) between takes and threatened to confiscate all instruments.

George Harrison got his fascination with sitar from the Indian musicians in the film, and immediately bought one.

US soundtrack LP

There was other music on the soundtrack which was released in the USA in a gatefold sleeve, instrumental versions of earlier Beatles songs: She’s A Woman, Another Hard Day’s Night, I’m Happy Just To Dance With You, The Bitter End / You Can’t Do That, From Me To You Fantasy. Plus In The Tyrol, The Chase. There are few cases where you’d want US stereo Beatle albums, but this one at least has new tracks but credited to the Ken Thorne Orchestra. The Indian musician’s version of A Hard Day’s Night is one I like.

US soundtrack rear, CD from The Capitol Albums series

The non-album soundtrack was supervised by Ken Thorne. George Martin later said that Richard Lester “fancied himself a musician,” and constantly second-guessed Martin’s scoring choices in an undiplomatic and overbearing manner, leading to bitter arguments over A Hard Day’s Night.

George Martin: I produced all the tracks for the film (Help!), but I wasn’t asked to do the scoring – another guy was offered the job. Dick Lester and I didn’t hit if off too well on A Hard Day’s Night and the fact that I got an Academy Award nomination for musical direction probably didn’t help either.”

RICHARD LESTER
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
How I Won The War (1967)
Petulia (1968)

POP EXPLOITATION FILMS

The Young Ones (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Help! (1965)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Performance (1970)