The Beatles in film

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The Beatles appeared in several films, most of which were very well received. The exception was the (mostly unscripted) television movie Magical Mystery Tour which was panned by critics and the public alike. All of their films had the same name as their associated soundtrack albums and a song on that album.

Contents

[edit] Films starring The Beatles

[edit] A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night poster
A Hard Day's Night poster

The Beatles had a successful film career, beginning with A Hard Day's Night (1964), a loosely scripted comic farce, sometimes compared to the Marx Brothers in style. It focused on Beatlemania and their hectic touring lifestyle, the movie was directed in a quasi-documentary style in black-and-white by the up-and-coming Richard Lester, who was known for having directed a television version of the successful BBC radio series The Goon Show as well as the off-beat short film The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film, with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.

[edit] Help!

In 1965 came Help!; an Eastmancolour extravaganza, which was also directed by Lester. The film was shot in exotic locations (such as Salisbury Plain, with Stonehenge visible in the background; the Bahamas; and Salzburg and the Tyrol region of the Austrian Alps) in the style of a James Bond spoof along with even more Marx Brothers-style zaniness: For example, the film is dedicated "to Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine." It was the first Beatles film filmed in colour.

[edit] Magical Mystery Tour

The Magical Mystery Tour film was essentially McCartney's idea, which was thought up as he returned from a trip to the U.S. in the late spring of 1967, and was loosely inspired by press coverage McCartney had read about Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' LSD-fuelled American bus odyssey.[1] McCartney felt inspired to take this idea and blend it with the peculiarly English working class tradition of charabanc mystery tours, in which children took chaperoned bus rides through the English countryside, destination unknown. The film was critically dismissed when it was aired on the BBC's premier television network, BBC-1, on Boxing Day — a day primarily for traditional "cosy, family entertainment"[citation needed]. While the film has historical importance as an early advance into the music video age, at the time many viewers found it plotless and confusing. Compounding this culture clash was the fact that the film was made in colour and made use of colour filters for some of the scenes - particularly in a sequence for "Blue Jay Way". In December 1967 practically no-one in the UK owned a colour receiver, the service only having started a few months earlier.

[edit] Yellow Submarine

The animated Yellow Submarine followed in 1968, but had little direct input from The Beatles, save for a live-action epilogue and the contribution of five new songs (including "Only a Northern Song", an unreleased track from the Sgt. Pepper sessions). It was acclaimed for its boldly innovative graphic style and especially stinging pangs of heartbreak, along with the soundtrack. The Beatles are said to have been pleased with the result and attended its highly publicised London premiere, every one of The Beatles thought their own voices (narrated by actors) were not quite right, whilst saying that the other three were perfect.

[edit] Let It Be

Let It Be was an ill-fated documentary of the band that was shot over a four-week period in January 1969. The documentary — which was originally intended to be simply a chronicle of the evolution of an album and the band's possible return to live performances — captured the prevailing tensions between the band members, and in this respect it unwittingly became a document of the beginning of their break-up.

The band initially rejected both the film and the album, instead recording and issuing the Abbey Road album. But with so much money having been spent on the project, it was decided to finish, and release, the film and album (the latter with considerable post-production by Phil Spector) in the spring of 1970. When the film finally appeared, it was after the break-up had been announced.

[edit] Individual projects

In late 1966, John Lennon took time off to play a supporting character, Gripweed, in a film called How I Won the War, also directed by Lester. It was a satire of World War II films, and its dry, ironic British humour was not well received by American audiences. He would later produce avant garde films with his second wife Yoko Ono, such as "Rape" which was produced for the Austrian television network ORF.

In 1969, Ringo Starr took second billing to Peter Sellers in the satirical comedy The Magic Christian, in a part which had been written especially for him. In 1971, Starr played the part of Frank Zappa in Zappa's epic cult film about a rock and roll band touring, entitled 200 Motels. Starr later embarked on an irregular career in comedy films through the early 1980s, and his interest in the subject led him to be the most active of the group in the film division of Apple Corps, although it was Harrison who would achieve the most success as a film producer ( The Life of Brian, Mona Lisa, Time Bandits, Shanghai Surprise, Withnail and I ) and even made a few cameos in some as well (including a reporter in All You Need Is Cash).

Paul McCartney did a cameo in Peter Richardson's 1987 film Eat the rich and realised his own film Give My Regards to Broad Street in 1984 in which Ringo Starr can be seen as well.

[edit] Documentaries

[edit] The Compleat Beatles

see main article The Compleat Beatles

[edit] The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

see main article The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

[edit] The Beatles Anthology

see main article The Beatles Anthology (film)

[edit] Fictionalized Beatles

[edit] Inspired by The Beatles

Several fictional films not depicting The Beatles have been entirely based on Beatles themes and songs.

[edit] Other

In The 2007 Mockumentary Film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Dewey Cox and his bandmates go to india to pray with the Maharishi and there they encounter The Beatles with Jack Black as Paul, Paul Rudd as John, Justin Long as George, and Jason Schwartzman as Ringo.

Originally the Beatles would have voiced the vultures in The Jungle Book (1967 film), but dropped out at the last minute.[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/mmt.htm Magical Mystery Tour on Television Heaven website