Help!

Review #1939: Help!

Cast: 

The Beatles [John Lennon • Paul McCartney • George Harrison • Ringo Starr], with Eleanor Bron (Ahme), Leo McKern (Clang), John Bluthal (Bhuta), Patrick Cargill (the Superintendent), Victor Spinetti (Professor Foot), Roy Kinnear (Algernon), Alfie Bass (Doorman), Warren Mitchell (Abdul), and Peter Copley (Jeweller) Directed by Richard Lester (#541 - A Hard Day's Night, #594 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, #785 - Superman II, #786 - Superman III, #972 - The Three Musketeers, and #976 - The Four Musketeers)

Review: 

I'm sure you remember A Hard's Day Night (1964), the first feature film that starred the wildly popular group of The Beatles. It was the third feature effort from Richard Lester, the American-born director who had lived in England since the 1950s. In my review for that film, I forgot to mention that one of the main attractions of Lester for the Beatles was his work on a short film called The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), although his experience in directing musical acts with It's Trad, Dad! (1962) probably also helped. The movie was a hit before it even came out (owing to pre-sales), but there was always a plan to do more than one Beatles film. At any rate, Lester followed the aforementioned Beatles film with The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965), a wide hit itself. Since the sequel wasn't going to feature the group doing what they were doing in their life, naturally the film would be about them being "passive responders to some external stimulus". Help! (working title: Eight Arms to Hold You) was a bigger budget film with more time (which meant filming in The Bahamas and Austria) and in color, which resulted in a generally pleasant experience, aside from the fact that the group got into marijuana during filming that made for plenty of giggles. The film was written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood. It should be noted that the film was apparently inspired by Duck Soup (1933), while the comedy stylings of the group was inspired by The Goon Show, which Lester had experience with. The next project with the Beatles was with the TV musical film Magical Mystery Tour in 1967, while Yellow Submarine (1968) saw them appear for exactly one scene, and the documentary Let It Be (1970) was their swansong. Lester would continue to do a variety of features in the next couple of years, whether that meant comedy in How I Won the War (1967, which had Lennon in a supporting role) or The Bed Sitting Room (1969) or other efforts such as the wildly successful Musketeers films.

At the time, the group did not particularly like the experience of filming - John Lennon felt like the group was like extras in their own film before calling it "advanced" years later. Of course, having to do a film alongside doing songs for it and touring probably didn't help matters. The two Beatles films were inspirations for filmmakers too: Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider saw the success of the two films and decided to revive an idea the former had for television involving teenagers and rock.... which eventually became The Monkees, which had their own feature film (but that is another time...). If you came to watch a film about The Beatles do a bit of singing and have a bit of fun with each other, you came to the right place. There's a handful of songs to view here, such as the title song (duh) or "Ticket to Ride". The group of four may be easy to describe with a sentence or two as performers rather than outright actors, but one always smiles when they are on screen, mostly in the case of the hapless Starr or the charm in McCartney (evidently, Lester felt Harrison was the best actor of the group, so take that for what it's worth). Besides, they seem to be having fun with the whole affair, whether that involves trying to deal with a stubborn ring on the finger or whatever - the lines go off one another like paper in the wind. It might not be as effective in general energy as their previous effort, but it has enough casual flair for adventure to make it a useful follow-up. It has been termed as being at the forefront for the "music video" (no, it didn't create the trend, but it sure had a key place with the filmmaking techniques used for sequences such as the title song). All of the fun happens around a movie about Eastern cultists and mad scientists chasing the group for a ring one of them has on their finger - McKern, Spinetti, and Kinnear make suitable foils to see involve themselves in the silly chase. Things come and go with the film, which all ends with tomfoolery on the beach. For 92 minutes, you can't really go wrong with this light fare of music and comedy with one of the most noted quartets of their time at your side for a playful goofy time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.