Help! is the unloved Beatles movie. It's not as witty as A Hard Day's Night or as cute and dazzling as Yellow Submarine. Magical Mystery Tour has developed an IMHO unearned reputation as an "experimental" classic, and even the dour Let It Be is seen as a bracing look at the "real" Beatles. Help!, however, is remembered as the movie where the Beatles got really stoned and didn't seem to care how the movie turned out. This is a rare occasion where the Beatles were wrong in their assessment of their own work.
The plot, while a tad manic, isn't the disjointed mess people claim it is, but a fairly standard MAD magazine-style parody of James Bond movies in which our heroes are chased around various exotic locales. The musical numbers are full of the quick non sequitur cuts that would become the stock-and-trade of The Monkees the following year, while the action parodies would influence both Get Smart and Batman.
The Beatles complained that they felt like extras in their own movie, but if so the supporting cast carried the weight just fine. Leo McKern (who would soon play an equally bizarre antagonist in The Prisoner) is hilarious as the high priest of Kali (a character played seriously in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom) and the gorgeous Eleanor Bron is charming as Ahme. Even better is Victor Spinetti, seen briefly in A Hard Day's Night and here given full reign as a mad scientist. It's a shame that the Beatles, all lovers of comedy, never made another dramatic feature, as they might have suggested working with the likes of Spike Milligan or even Monty Python.
How are the Beatles themselves? Not bad, actually. The scenes where they were high out of their minds must have been relegated to the cutting room floor, because while slightly heavy-lidded they nonetheless deliver their lines with wit.
What raises Help! above the other Beatle movies other than A Hard Day's Night, however, is the movie's visual style. Art director Ray Simms creates a mod look for the group's wonderful shared house, and cinematographer David Watkin makes sure the audience knows the movie is in COLOUR. The Beatles may have never *looked* better than they do in the recording session scene for "You're Going To Lose That Girl."
(Note: the one aspect of the movie that has not aged well is the use of "brownface" for Indian characters. It's especially troubling considering George's later embrace of Indian spirituality. However, in both a very funny scene involving "experts" and the later scenes in the Bahamas the writers do get a few digs at colonial British prejudices. Still, these scenes may be troubling to modern audiences)
The plot, while a tad manic, isn't the disjointed mess people claim it is, but a fairly standard MAD magazine-style parody of James Bond movies in which our heroes are chased around various exotic locales. The musical numbers are full of the quick non sequitur cuts that would become the stock-and-trade of The Monkees the following year, while the action parodies would influence both Get Smart and Batman.
The Beatles complained that they felt like extras in their own movie, but if so the supporting cast carried the weight just fine. Leo McKern (who would soon play an equally bizarre antagonist in The Prisoner) is hilarious as the high priest of Kali (a character played seriously in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom) and the gorgeous Eleanor Bron is charming as Ahme. Even better is Victor Spinetti, seen briefly in A Hard Day's Night and here given full reign as a mad scientist. It's a shame that the Beatles, all lovers of comedy, never made another dramatic feature, as they might have suggested working with the likes of Spike Milligan or even Monty Python.
How are the Beatles themselves? Not bad, actually. The scenes where they were high out of their minds must have been relegated to the cutting room floor, because while slightly heavy-lidded they nonetheless deliver their lines with wit.
What raises Help! above the other Beatle movies other than A Hard Day's Night, however, is the movie's visual style. Art director Ray Simms creates a mod look for the group's wonderful shared house, and cinematographer David Watkin makes sure the audience knows the movie is in COLOUR. The Beatles may have never *looked* better than they do in the recording session scene for "You're Going To Lose That Girl."
(Note: the one aspect of the movie that has not aged well is the use of "brownface" for Indian characters. It's especially troubling considering George's later embrace of Indian spirituality. However, in both a very funny scene involving "experts" and the later scenes in the Bahamas the writers do get a few digs at colonial British prejudices. Still, these scenes may be troubling to modern audiences)