So, should I let Amber and Alice see the Beatles' "Help" film?

oops - sorry 9could someone delete that:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/beatleslaugh_zpsvhjotz2t.jpg

(this was the colossally baked Help era photo I was thinking of. I love how the statue in the back looks slightly disapproving, and there's almost a trompe l'oeil effect - with Paul's hand seeming to be coming out of the frame.)

This film has aged quite nicely. It parodies nearly every genre movie trope from 1910-1965, so i don't imagine kids would like much besides the songs and the primary colors.

It's nowhere as great a film as AHDN, but it's probably funnier.

The woman gets off a couple of good lines too

"The woman." Yo La Tengo gives her a shout in their greatest song, and she's "the woman."

there is at least one pot joke, where Ringo is chewing gum and Paul promises that it's not addicting "If you don't swallow it."

i saw this for the first time the other day! (a hard day's night too.) i loved the godardian color filters and superimposed text and the have your cake and eat it too aspect of making a completely off-the-rails musical comedy spy film. i didn't enjoy the nonspecific racism in its depiction of an "eastern" death cult (it's a parody of bond films but in this way i think it reinforced bond tropes instead of undermining them.) it also kinda suffers from having only one plot point. but boy is the cinematography gorgeous. also: the exciting adventure of paul on the floor is probably my favorite thing that happens in either film

“It’s a different religion from ours. I think.”

I’m really fond of the scene of them playing cards in Buckingham Palace and trying to convince Ringo to cut his finger off, and suggesting they could just hire this other drummer up in Manchester.

George's "Doesn't sound a bit like Cagney" never fails to make me laugh.

This film has so many fewer fans than AHDN that nobody ever gets my frequent uses of "With an X like that I could -- dare I say it? -- rule the world."

lmao

I like to imagine that the use of white English actors to play the "eastern" restaurant doorman is a bit of meta commentary on the casting

oh yeah that is def something that seems sorta self-aware

Oh, one I forgot back from the second time we watched it..

Yes, the meta commentary on the casting, yes. Even to the point of "oh, we've got a real one in there, havent we?"

When that guy sees the ring, he goes all nervy and has to lie on a bed of nails to calm down. At which point, Alice said "Oh, you did that once, didn't you Dad?" And I had to recall it and yes: There was a museum somewhere, a bloke doing a chat about the bed of nails and asked for volunteers, so Amber and Alice shoved me up there. Yes, I had indeed, but I didn't take my coat off and no damage was done.

I laid down on a bed of nails at a museum once when I was a kid younger, so much younger than today. There was a plexiglass platform with holes in it that you would lay down on, and then a motor would raise the nails up. I remember it as being very comfortable.

I just finished Get Back and Eight Days A Week, so I'd been wanting to watch Help! this week. It's not available on any of the streaming services I subscribe to, but fortunately, it's up on Dailymotion.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5rsp4o

The one thing that annoys me:

At the end, where the lads are singing along while the credits are playing, George notices his song credit is on screen and yells out "I Need You, George Harrison!".

I used to laff at that one. I don't now, as the credits have been re-done, and he yells out at a complete random point now.

I dunno. Remaster that one, I say!

I dug out the most recent Blu-ray and George's credit and reaction are in the right place.

He does say it a minute later as well, so maybe I had it wrong all this time!

i saw this for the first time the other day! (a hard day's night too.) i loved the godardian color filters and superimposed text and the have your cake and eat it too aspect of making a completely off-the-rails musical comedy spy film. i didn't enjoy the nonspecific racism in its depiction of an "eastern" death cult (it's a parody of bond films but in this way i think it reinforced bond tropes instead of undermining them.) it also kinda suffers from having only one plot point. but boy is the cinematography gorgeous. also: the exciting adventure of paul on the floor is probably my favorite thing that happens in either film

― flamenco blorf (BradNelson), Sunday, June 3, 2018 11:34 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I watched this last week and definitely agree with Brad on the racism and white casting of Asian characters. It's a shame because the Beatles themselves are very charming and hilarious throughout.

I've never watched A Hard Day's Night before, but I have to check that out while I'm on a roll.