The remastered DVD of The Beatles’ second film, Help! is scheduled for release on October 30. This 1965 musical comedy was the follow-up to the critical and commercial success, A Hard Day’s Night, reuniting the Fab Four with director Richard Lester.
The story involves Ringo finding himself in possession of a ring (oh!) that belongs to a mysterious eastern cult. It’s up to John, Paul and George to help save their drummer from becoming the victim of human sacrifice. The silly story aside, there are a bunch of great songs including “Ticket to Ride”, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, and my personal favorite, “You’re Gonna Lose that Girl”.
Among the filmmakers who praised Help! were none other than Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli. My own favorite moment of this film is at the beginning when The Beateles are singing the title song when suddenly they are being hit by darts. The camera pulls back to reveal that The Beatles are on a movie screen used as a dart board by one of the villains.
The DVD is being released by The Beatles’ long time record label EMI, the company that was shut out of the profits when the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack made much money for United Artists Records. Back when the first film was made, The Beatles were big in Britain, but still unknown in the U.S.
The link to the trailer is here.
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Mike Durrett said
September 7 2007 @ 12:36 pm
The Beatles made their first live U.S. appearance on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW in February, 1964, and a follow-up shortly thereafter. Believe me, they were widely known in the United States for months before the TV show, which was a national sensation.
Then, after the Sullivan appearances, they went back to England to begin filming A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, starting in April, as I recall. The movie was released in the U.S. in August and, incredibly, it wasn’t handled as an A-list picture, opening largely in third-tier theatres and drive-ins. But, audiences swarmed to it anyway.
United Artists distributed the film, so that’s why they had the soundtrack rights, the common practice of the day.
When the movie contracts were signed, The Beatles were considered to have iffy futures as movie stars and there was little faith the film would be a hit, as the producers thought the band might be a flash in the pan. EMI apparently dropped the ball on the music rights due to everyone’s low expectations for the movie’s success.
Peter Nellhaus said
September 8 2007 @ 8:43 am
I should have checked the filming date. However, when “A Hard Day’s Night” was in the planning stage, this was prior to the U.S. tour. Read Steven Soderbergh’s interview with Richard Lester in the book “Getting Away with It” in which Lester explains how the film was considered something of a risk because no one knew how long The Beatles would be popular, and the United Artists execs were baffled by the final film. As far as soundtrack rights, they were not always distributed by the record arms of film companies. EMI did not have the soundtrack rights to The Beatles’ music at the time “A Hard Day’s Night” was produced. By the way, I did see both Beatles films at the time of their initial U.S. releases.