Help!

This is an entertaining movie that serves its sole purpose very well---to showcase a bunch of terrific Beatles songs. Everyone knows the plot---a religious cult needs to retrieve a sacrificial ring which Ringo cannot get off his finger, consequently he has to be sacrificed. The lads go through various adventures in London, Switzerland and the Bahamas before it is all over.

It is easy to imagine this movie being an inspiration for Monty Python later on and it isn't surprising to learn that George Harrison in particlar became good friends with Michael Palin and Eric Idle of Python fame. Now imagine what a combined Beatles-Python movie would've been like!

One scene in "Help!" which I particularly remember is the Leo Mckern, the cult leader, dressed in his sari, drinking tea and collegially discussing his religious beliefs with an Anglican priest. Of the Beatles, John and Ringo have most of the funny lines and the movie exaggerates the idea of George being tight with his money---playing poker with Ringo at Buckingham Palace, pilfering rings from a jeweler, pretending he can't find his wallet thus forcing Ringo to pick up the tab at a pub. The caricature personas the Beatles adopted for this movie in particular became the way many fans viewed them which I think George found to be alternately ironic and irritating since he insisted he was nothing like the movie version of himself.

After the success of the low budget A Hard Day's Night with its classic soundtrack that after over 40 years is still a best selling item, the more expensive Help was made for the Beatles. The Fab Four even got to do a little location shooting in the Bahamas and in Salzburg, Austria for the skiing sequence.

Ringo Starr so named for his well known passion for rings has got himself quite the ruby bauble. It's been noticed by some Eastern cult headed by Leo McKern and these guys ain't kidding about what it takes to get it. The one who wears the ring has to be a human sacrifice.

So when all kinds of strange people start going after our page boy teen idols, it's one merry anarchistic chase all over the United Kingdom and other parts of the globe.

Leo McKern and such other British character actors like Alfie Bass, Victor Spinetti, and Patrick Cargill get it on the fun. Eleanor Bron plays a fifth columnist in McKern's camp looks to help the Beatles because she's one of several million fans they have across the globe and she really does like the drummer with the honker.

Like it's predecessor Help's soundtrack is still selling in the gazillions because it has several John Lennon-Paul McCartney songs still popular like A Ticket To Ride, You're Gonna Lose That Girl, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and the title song.

Also like it's predecessor it paved the way for the venue of the music video which today's musical artist seem to prefer more than records on which you can hear them. It boggles the mind when you think of who could have been captured performing if that technology had been available for more than 100 years more.

So if your ticket to ride is punched, relax and enjoy.

Help! has had a bad press, dating back to the 60s - when John Lennon criticises his own work, people listen.

But John wasn't really being fair. His disappointment (and similar comments from the others) reflect that, in this film, the Beatles were playing characters rather than, as in A Hard Day's Night, imitations of themselves.

Personally, I don't see the difference. Unless the cameras are fly-on-the-wall filming you in real life, then you're playing a character - that's what a fiction film is all about! And the Beatles played characters based on themselves in both A Hard Day's Night and Help!, it's just that the former film was staged in a more cine-verite manner.

Help!, on the other hand, is pure escapist nonsense. It's colourful, it has an actual plot (wildly improbable as it might be), the four Beatles discharge their responsibilities adequately, there are some lovely little throwaway bits of humour (check out Paul, Eleanor Bron, George, and the winking), and above everything, the music is great.

Just take it as an opportunity to go back to the summer of 1965 and relish the Beatles providing fun at the height of their popularity!

"Help" is a nice companion movie to "A Hard Days Night". It is filmed in color, and while it doesn't have the classic look of black and white "Hard Days Night", the script is better, and the Beatles appear more relaxed acting. The music is very good. Ringo, often in the background during in concerts and on recordings, proves he is the best actor of the Fab Four. Paul, John and George come across the screen as genuine and charismatic. "Help!" is filmed in different locations as well, which add to the film's quality. To me, the Beatles are the greatest rock group in history. Before there was MTV, there was "A Hard Days Night" and "Help!". Nothing in music can top that.

A great movie. People here seem to complain the plotline was too silly. But keep in mind this was during the Bond phase(almost a forerunner to Get Smart). A sacrificial ring caught on the Famous Ringo's finger. A mad scientist trying to take over the world. An evil cult trying to kill our heroes. A girl from that cult secretly helping our heroes. Typical Bondish plotlines.

It also has great one-liners(Maybe it's that I'm just your average 14 year old American who loves British humor), and just weird ones that sound funny. "I don't subscribe to your religion." "He's out to rule the world if he can get a government grant." "Now, look here, Paul. I've had some great times with this finger. How do you know I wouldn't miss it?"

And, of course, greeeeeaaaaat music.