Help!

"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.

Although not as critically acclaimed as The Beatles' previous movie "A Hard Day's Night", "Help!" is equally as entertaining. In my opinion, the plot is much more interesting because it takes The Beatles to different locations around the world instead of just movie sets and hotel rooms. The first movie was to show how The Beatles lived everyday life and "Help!" was a fresh departure from this. I believe that this film is much more fun because John, Paul, George, and Ringo are having fun and so will you.

What a goofy, silly, wonderful movie! I used to watch this one all the time as a kid, so it may be the nostalgia talking, but it still holds up well. I was smiling almost the entire time. It was a bit slower than I remember, and my kids may not have enjoyed it as much as I did, but this is probably my favorite Beatles movie.

This film, suck in the shadow of the criticaly lauded (rightfully so) "A Hard Day's Night", is arguably just as good and maybe more important. Richard Lester's

stuck deep in Buster Keaton mode (the Beatles Digs seem an homage to "the

Electric House") and he never made his modernized version of Buster work

better. Though it lacks "Hard Day's Nights" quicksilver verbal wit; there are

excellent visual jokes to pick up the slack, and the Beatles acting, FAR from being bad, hits just the right tone of throwaway sillyness. The supporting cast are perfect. Of the seven Beatles songs, I would say three( "Help" "The NIght Before" and "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away") are A plus Beatles, setting the bar very high indeed. This style of comedy, as I suggested, had one foot in silent comedy and one in hip detachment; and if that works for you, "Help!" should prove timeless.

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!