The Beatles Movie Career (Part One) The Beatles Each Had Different Feelings About Filming the Movie “Help!”

The Beatles Movie Career (Part One)The Beatles Each Had Different Feelings About Filming the Movie “Help!”

"Absurd, delightful and exuberantly messy, Help! is a pure pleasure to watch."

-- The New York Times

In 1965 the Beatles started making the Movie ”Help!”  The movie was their second full length film, and their first to be made in color.

The Beatles Help! - The Trailer

https://youtu.be/n_GOaRaTaJo

Of all the Beatles Paul liked to be in front of the camera the most.  It could easily be said that since the very beginning of the Beatles, Paul had been a natural actor.  Many times up to the filming of “Help!”, Paul had been the Beatle that assisted most with the great publicity photographs of the time with his well-timed dramatic gestures such as leaping in the air just as the cameraman took a shot.  Paul was well documented for not doing much preparation for his role in “Help!”.  His thoughts were that too much prompting by professional drama coaches might rob the Beatles’ movies of the much needed reality the fans so desired.  Paul did not want himself or his fellow Beatles to come off as puppets in the film.  He worked, by not preparing, so as not to let the screenplay writer or the director diminish the true nature of the Fab Four.  Today we would call that, “keeping it real.”

However, Ringo soon became the most promising of the Fab Four in terms of screen presence.  He was a naturally good comic mime and found he could easily pull off funny faces.  There was a magic touch of Chaplin in Ringo’s performance.  At the time, it was written that Ringo portrayed a likable lunacy in his personality which lent to a remarkably likeable photo presence. Ringo was pleasantly astounded to hear his screen performances rated so highly and rose to the occasion by performing better than ever for the “Help!” cameras.

The producers of the film saw George as a person to give words to rather than action, so they gave him dry, witty lines and dialogue which were humorous, to be delivered in George’s familiar drawl.  Timing was important with George.  The lines had to be spoken precisely on cue to achieve maximum effect.  Although George really did not care all that much about movie acting, he found that he was very interested in the techniques of the shooting of the film.  Many times he asked questions about the production of the film.

John during the filming of “Help!” was restless.  He found filming much too slow and somewhat monotonous, because it took so long to set up each scene.  John was a man of action who wanted to do everything as fast as he thought about it and the sluggish pace of filming really did not fit his style of life.  When asked if he would like to have one of the books he had written made into a film he would say that he saw the possibilities of a series of short scenes without the necessity for a storyline to link everything - but nobody took up the idea. I believe if John wanted to make films he would have made films.

Paul was the only Beatle who had any yearnings for a long-term movie career for himself.  Ringo enjoyed his contributions to “Help!” and was delighted to find himself much closer to the center of activity than he had ever been in the recording studio.  In front of the film cameras people seemed to see Ringo a the key character in the whole affair, something he was not accustomed to or maybe even liked.  He accepted his new glamour role in his usual easy-going and unchallenging way.  John and George solved their boredom problems by creeping off whenever they were not required on the set.  

One of the many reasons why the Beatles had spoken so little about the filming side of their career was that they never did classify themselves as professional actors. They just did not feel comfortable talking about movie acting with those who were in the movie business.  

As well, there were not very many quality options available to them in their genre.  The Fab Four found it very difficult to evaluate film scripts.  The lads’ experiences, and some would argue genius, were with making music.  They only needed to listen to a demo tape of a song for just a few minutes to make a quick and easy decision if the song was worth working on in the studio.  The Fab Four found it very hard to decide whether a script or their performance was any good or not.  The fact that scenes were shot out of sequence only confused their judgement even further.  They felt a loss of control when acting, and had to rely on Dick Lester’s directions and hope that their efforts would be worthy.

As with most people who are the best in their chosen career and then go into a new endeavor, they are usually their worst critics.  The Beatles just did not get that well known feeling of greatness, or maybe that great victory of achievement they must have enjoyed in making and performing music, as with their acting performances.  The Fab Four just did not know if their films were good enough under their terms.  I am sure they must have thought, stick to what you know and have had the greatest success, and hopefully the most fun while expressing their unparalleled musical creativity.

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This file is the author's own work and represents their interpretation of the
song. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or research.
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