‘Stop dragging things down to your own level, it’s immature son...’
Despite my Beatles obsession reaching fever pitch earlier this year following the release of Peter Jackson’s incredible documentary Get Back, the Fab Four’s own cinematic escapades have continued to elude me. I’ve seen and enjoyed A Hard Day’s Night a couple of times, but that’s all she wrote. This needs to be addressed of course, and so I turned to Help!
Ringo Starr becomes the target of a human death cult after acquiring a mysterious ring with unknown power. Sounds weird doesn’t it. Well, it is. Director Richard Lester takes the surrealistic, absurdist aesthetic that he utilised on A Hard Day’s Night and applies it to this incredibly odd tale of tigers, human sacrifice and people winking at George Harrison (‘You used to get that didn’t you, Paul?’).
Featuring many of the songs from Help! the album, including the title track, ‘You’re Going to Lose That Girl’ and ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’, Help! captures John and Paul and Ringo and George in that purple patch in which they were clearly still incredibly close. Their snarky repartee is a joy to witness, and while the plot is unnecessarily strange, there is a lot to enjoy here for fans of the band and their music.
Help! is perhaps not as well remembered as the film that preceded it, but it does work as a dreamlike companion piece to A Hard Day’s Night that more than justifies its existence. It’s also pleasing to see lots of lovely British pubs from the ’60s. A true golden era for the public house.
This is a film not just for Beatles enthusiasts then, but also more casual fans. A lot of fun.