Help! (film)

Help!
Directed by	Richard Lester
Written by	Charles Wood, Marc Behm (story)
Produced by	Walter Shenson
Starring	John Lennon Paul McCartney George Harrison Ringo Starr Leo McKern Eleanor Bron Patrick Cargill Victor Spinetti Mal Evans
Cinematography	David Watkin
Edited by	John Victor Smith
Music by	The Beatles George Martin Ken Thorne
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	July 29, 1965
Running time	92 min.
Country	U.K.
Language	English

Help! is a 1965 film starring The Beatles and featuring Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, John Bluthal, Roy Kinnear and Patrick Cargill. The soundtrack was released as an album, also called Help!.

Synopsis

An eastern cult is about to sacrifice a woman to the goddess Kaili. Just before she is killed however, they notice that she is not wearing the sacrificial ring. It's revealed that Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles, has it, sent to him by the victim and her sister, who is also the high priestess of the cult (both of whom are fans of the Beatles), and it's stuck on his finger. Determined to retrieve the ring and sacrifice the woman, the great Swami Clang (McKern), the high priestess Ahme (Bron) and several cult members including Bhuta (Bluthal) leave for London. After several failed attempts to steal the ring without Ringo noticing, they confront him in an Indian restaurant. Ringo learns that if he doesn't return the ring soon, he will become the next sacrifice. Unfortunately, the ring is stuck and he can't take it off.

The band is chased around London by Clang, Ahme and the cult members. In a desperate effort to dispose of the ring, the band resorts to the bumbling efforts of a mad scientist, Foot (Spinetti) and his assistant Algernon (Kinnear); when his equipment turns out to have no effect on the ring, Foot decides that he too must somehow acquire it.

The band flees to the Swiss Alps and narrowly escapes a trap due to assistance from Ahme, who is secretly helping the Beatles as gratitude for her sister's reprieve. They ask for protection from Scotland Yard and get it in the form of a cowardly Inspector (Cargill). After being attacked whilst recording in the middle of Salisbury Plain, they hide in Buckingham Palace until they are almost captured by Foot. From there, they run to the Bahamas, followed by Scotland Yard officers, Foot and the cult. After Ringo is nearly captured, the other Beatles pose as him in order to lure the cult members, who are then arrested by the local Police. Despite their best efforts, Ringo is captured by Foot, who takes him on to a ship intending to cut off his finger to get the ring.

Ahme rescues Ringo by giving Foot a shrinking solution in exchange. The two try to to escape the ship by jumping into the water, however Ringo can't swim. They are captured by the cult and tied down on the beach. Clang begins the ceremony to sacrifice Ringo, after telling him that the cult members are prepared to attack the rest of the Beatles and police when they come to the rescue and that if Ringo attempts to warn them he will die instantly.

Ringo manages to untie himself and tries to wave to his bandmates to warn them away. With this act of courage, the ring falls from his finger. He puts the ring on Clang's hand, saying "Get sacrificed! I don't subscribe to your religion!" Ahme declares that Clang will be the next sacrifice, as he is wearing the ring. The movie ends with Help! playing one last time and everyone running around. Clang manages to remove the ring and gives it to Foot and Algernon (who ask him to translate the Eastern text on the shrinking solution bottle). They, however, leave the ring in the sand while the police rush about arresting the cult while the Beatles playfully run around; the ring ends up on Bhuta's finger and he becomes the target for sacrifice. The movie ends with a dedication to Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine.

Inspiration

The Beatles said the film was inspired by the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup; it was also directly satirical of the James Bond series of films. At the time of the original release of Help!, its distributor, United Artists, also held the rights to the Bond series (now owned by UA sister studio MGM.)

Production

According to interviews conducted with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Starr for The Beatles Anthology, director Richard Lester was given a larger budget for this film than he had for A Hard Day's Night thanks to the commercial success of the latter. Thus, this feature film was in colour and was shot on several exotic foreign locations.

Help! was set in London, Salisbury Plain, the Austrian Alps, Providence Island in the Bahamas and Twickenham Film Studios. Ringo Starr commented in The Beatles Anthology that they were in the Bahamas for the hot weather scenes, and therefore had to wear light clothing even though it was rather cold.

The Beatles did not particularly enjoy the filming of the movie, nor were they pleased with the end product. Lennon said in 1970 that they felt like extras in their own movie.

"The movie was out of our control. With A Hard Day's Night, we had a lot of input, and it was semi-realistic. But with Help!, Dick Lester didn't tell us what it was all about. I realize, looking back, how advanced it was. It was a precursor for the Batman 'Pow! Wow!' on TV -- that kind of stuff. But he never explained it to us. Partly, maybe, because we hadn't spent a lot of time together between A Hard Day's Night and Help!, and partly because we were smoking marijuana for breakfast during that period. Nobody could communicate with us, it was all glazed eyes and giggling all the time. In our own world. It's like doing nothing most of the time, but still having to rise at 7AM, so we became bored."

— John Lennon on filming Help!

A contributing factor was exhaustion attributable to their very busy schedule of writing, recording and touring. Afterwards they were hesitant to begin another film project, and indeed Help! was their last full-length scripted theatrical film. Their obligation for a third film to United Artists was met by the 1970 documentary film Let It Be. The 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine did not meet contractual obligations because it did not star the Beatles themselves, and their only live appearance was featured for less than two minutes at the film's conclusion.

"Haze of marijuana"

The Beatles later said the film was shot in a "haze of marijuana". According to Ringo Starr's interviews in The Beatles Anthology, during the Austrian Alps film shooting he and Paul ran off over the hill from the "curling" scene set to smoke a joint.

"A hell of a lot of pot was being smoked while we were making the film. It was great. That helped make it a lot of fun...In one of the scenes, Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear are playing curling: sliding along those big stones. One of the stones has a bomb in it and we find out that it's going to blow up, and have to run away. Well, Paul and I ran about seven miles, we ran and ran, just so we could stop and have a joint before we came back. We could have run all the way to Switzerland. If you look at pictures of us you can see a lot of red-eyed shots; they were red from the dope we were smoking. 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."

— Ringo Starr

In the Beatles Anthology Director's Cut, George Harrison admitted that they were smoking marijuana on the plane ride all the way to the Bahamas.

Paul McCartney also shared some of his memories of when they were filming Help!:

"We showed up a bit stoned, smiled a lot and hoped we'd get through it. We giggled a lot. I remember one time at Cliveden (Lord Astor's place, where the Christine Keeler/Profumo scandal went on); we were filming the Buckingham Palace scene where we were all supposed to have our hands up. It was after lunch, which was fatal because someone might have brought out a glass of wine as well. 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 we'd turn round to the camera there were tears streaming down our faces. It's OK to get the giggles anywhere else but in films, because the technicians get pissed off with you. They think, 'They're not very professional.' Then you start thinking, 'This isn't very professional -- but we're having a great laugh.'"

— Paul McCartney

Songs

The song titles that appear in the film are:

• "Help!"
• "You're Going to Lose That Girl"
• "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"
• "Ticket to Ride"
• "The Night Before"
• "I Need You"
• "Another Girl"
• "She's A Woman"
• "A Hard Day's Night" (played by Indian band and as instrumentals)
• "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" (played by a band during the bike-riding scene)

Critical response

Critical opinion at the time of release was positive, but the film has not achieved a level of acclaim comparable to that for A Hard Day's Night. The absurd comedic style and frenetic pacing were in some ways a forerunner of future British comedy, such as Monty Python's Flying Circus. The film had a direct influence on the American television series The Monkees, which was patterned very closely upon the film.

Novelisation

A novelisation entitled The Beatles in Help! was written by Al Hine and published by Dell in 1965.

A sequence featuring Frankie Howerd and Wendy Richard was filmed but left out of final editing owing to its length. However, the sequence was left in the film novelization.

Release history

File:Help!.jpg

Criterion CAV Laserdisc release of Help!

Like A Hard Day's Night, Help! was originally distributed theatrically by United Artists (UA handled distribution from 1965 to the end of 1980). In January 1981, rights to the movie reverted from UA to producer Walter Shenson, and the movie was withdrawn from circulation. Help! was released several times in different video formats by MPI Home Video and The Criterion Collection. On VHS, a version was released during February 1987 through MPI, along with a reissue of "A Hard Day's Night" the very same day, and was followed by a special-edition release on October 31, 1995. MPI also issued a CLV laserdisc in 1995 and two releases on DVD, the first as a single DVD release on November 12, 1997 and the second as part of "The Beatles DVD Collector's Set" on August 8, 2000.

LaserDisc releases include a Criterion CAV laserdisc and a Voyager CLV laserdisc in 1987, each of which had three pressings. The first pressings had no UPC code on the gatefold covers while the other two had the UPC code either as a sticker or printed directly on the jacket. The film's transfer on the CAV laserdiscs was done correctly so that each still frame is motionless and ultrasharp. The supplemental section, which has never been available on any other home video release, contains the following:

• original theatrical trailer (which includes deleted scenes)
• silent footage of the film set and of the world premiere
• still photos, some of which are introduced by text describing the production history of the film
• posters
• sheet music
• record jackets
• radio ads (on audio during the silent footage)
• an open interview, originally designed for disc jockeys. By reading prompts on the screen, one can pretend to talk to the Beatles.

File:Beatles Help CAV Laserdisc Open.jpg

Inside of the Gatefold Cover of the Help! Criterion Laserdisc.

In June 2007, a version of 'Help!', sub-titled in Korean, became available on Amazon.com. However, by July 2007, all home video versions of the film were pulled from the market because of rights issues involving Apple Corps - now the full rights holders to the film. The rights issues were finally resolved and Apple Corps/EMI released a restored and remixed 5.1 version of the film on standard DVD and deluxe edition on October 30, 2007 in the UK and November 6th, 2007 in America. [1]

Trivia

• Although it is quite obvious that the Beatles were getting chased by an Indian cult, especially since Ringo was supposed to be sacrificed for Kaili/Kali, it was never explicitly mentioned. The script sidestepped saying "India" by saying "Eastern" instead. For example, when George Harrison is speaking to a chef of an Indian restaurant, he asks "Does this Eastern flavour come expensive?" The instruments in the restaurant scene include sitar, an Indian instrument, and oud, an Arabic one; the dancer is also clearly dancing in an Arabic style rather than Indian, very much mixing cultural influences. Also, when Ahme gives Foot the shrinking juice, he tries to read the label but laments that he can't because it is "written in Eastern".
• Among the film's original working titles were Beatles Phase II and, as suggested by Walter Shenson, Eight Arms to Hold You. In fact, all copies of the single (Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is) and early copies of the US-released 45 (Help!/I'm Down) are printed with that as the movie title.
• The "channel swimmer" who makes appearances during the curling scene and at the end of the film is Beatles road manager Mal Evans.
• Despite the somewhat cartoonish allusions to Indian culture and religion in the film, the production of the film was arguably the spark that set off George Harrison's fascination with Indian music and religion. It was during the filming of this film, for instance, that he discovered the sitar, which he would later use in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".
• The film was mockingly dedicated to Elias Howe “who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine."
• The video for the band Travis' "Sing" includes the band seen on a black-and-white television. The sequence imitates the opening of The Beatles' performance in Help, down to the choice of camera angles, and with suction-cup arrows replacing the darts.
• A sequence with the Beatles practicing acting lessons, which featured actress Wendy Richard (Miss Brahms of Are You Being Served?), was filmed but was cut from the final product.
• A scene involving The Beatles driving around the Bahamas in 'Beetle' cars was cut out of the final film.
• The book that John pulls out of his secret compartment in his room is a copy of his book, A Spaniard in the Works.
• The music played over the end credits is from The Barber of Seville written by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.
• Director Richard Lester originally approached Peter Sellers to play Clang, Sellers declined because he didn't want to be upstaged by The Beatles.

External links

• Help! at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Beatles
• Help! at IMDb
• Beatles Laserdiscs