Help![Blu-ray]

“Help!” has had a checkered reputation over the years but it has steadily grown as it has been appreciated as perhaps the earliest example of a Pop Art style and sensibility in film that greatly influenced future sixties productions on film and television as well as 80s music videos. Fans, of course, immediately accepted it - it was the Beatles! It was a problem of expectations, “A Hard Day’s Night” was rightfully praised to the sky as a brilliant New Wave imaginary documentary of the band when expectations were that it would be exploitation-film trash. Being up against that disadvantaged “Help!” and it was seen by most critics as a silly comedy compared to its predecessor whose only redeeming factor was the Beatles and their music. Through some kind of inexplicably good luck, the Beatles had fallen into just the right hands for their first film, so nobody was going to mess with that and producer/director team Walter Shenson and Richard Lester and many of their previous staff came together for this film. But what was Lester to do? He couldn’t just make a color version of “A Hard Day’s Night”. That film was like many European films, a slice of life with little actual plot going on. So this time he did a more American style film with a plot whose development drove everything. Though this had the effect of sometimes diminishing the centrality of the Beatles themselves - or as Lennon said, “We’re extras in our own movie” - this is what you got. In retrospect you actually get a genuine picture of the band in transition, one which had begun musically in their first film and had continued. They are no longer the R&B Beat band of Beatlemania and the suits and ties are mostly gone and their everyday wear tends toward black turtlenecks beneath shirts and jackets well on their way to “Rubber Soul”. The film began shooting in February, 1965 and so we got the band not long after the release of “Beatles ‘65” in America and “Beatles For Sale: in the U.K. They’re still pretty together and Lennon and McCartney still collaborate, though already most songs are mostly one or the other. George finally got a composition in the film with “I Need You”, written about Patti Boyd. We also get to hear them speak more often and in longer sentences. It was a real challenge to center a film on non-actors and in the first film the guys were mostly given one-liners. In “Help!” they had some actual conversations and we got to differentiate their voices better. Their Liverpool “Scouse” accents were a big part of their identity and appeal and I’m forever thankful that the United Artists executive who wanted them dubbed for Americans in the first film was met with a cold, hard stare from Lester and the band. The goings on are truly silly and most people know it involves two sets of bumbling, comic villains trying to get at Ringo because of the ring he is wearing, received as a gift from a fan in India. One is a cult based on the real or legendary Thuggee cults of the subcontinent, written about since the 1300s and becoming a trope of fiction during the British Raj. More recently some people have objected to it, but it’s far too silly for serious complaints, especially when the film was made in 1965. This allows for colorful costumes and a sense of real danger if they were only not buffoons. They are joined by a pair of mad scientists: Foot, the madder of the two, is intent on ruling the world and brings back Victor Spinetti who was the neurotic TV director in the garish mohair sweater in “A Hard Day’s Night”. (Fans will also recognize Jeremy Lloyd, the tall man who jumped up and down next to Ringo in the nightclub in the first film, this time as a customer in the Indian restaurant). Foot is assisted by Algernon (Roy Kinnear), who is even more incompetent .Foot wants the ring, though it’s never described as having any magical power - he seems to just think it does. The cult just wants to sacrifice Ringo because of some bylaw that says the person wearing it is the next sacrificial victim. The film proceeds as a succession of outlandish comic attempts on Ringo between songs in which they are helped by Ahme (Eleanor Bron), one of the cult’s senior members.. I can’t help but feel that there was at least one too many of these incidents as they begin to seem repetitive, but since the Beatles are in all of them I don’t mind. The music is staged throughout the film in creative ways. It’s really true that Lester was creating the music video here. Early attempts, including the mid-60s French Scopitone, merely showed something like a typical TV performance. Here songs are sometimes staged in a recording studio or as an old, filmed concert appearance, but also occur in settings like Salisbury Plain under military protection, the Bahamas and most creatively in the Austrian Alps on skis. Typically Lester, we just jump cut to these places and in Austria we are given no reason why they are there and it’s all their antics in the snow with only one glimpse of them as a band playing at the ski competition while George surrealistically eats a cymbal. He showed there was no need to only show a band playing or in fact, for any strict continuity between one thing or another. Eighties music videos owe so much to this as does the entire Monkees television show and a great deal of 60s comedy and spoofs. “Ticket To Ride” marked a new, harder sound for the band, but overall the songs are on the softer side. The completely acoustic “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”, a real masterpiece by Lennon, is for me the musical highlight of the film with its murky, introspective lyrics. It was a real step forward from the typical love song lyrics of the day. They said it was inspired by Dylan, who also had another effect during the film shoot by introducing them to marijuana during their August, 1964 stay in New York. They noted that they were “having marijuana for breakfast” while making the film and that it had an isolating effect on them. “Help!” itself was a unique song with a dynamic arrangement and lyrics that Lennon felt personally at this time. It shot to number one everywhere ( despite a weak B-side, a throwaway McCartney raver, “I’m Down”, which peaked at #101 in America. “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” would have been an ideal B-side but that would have been two Lennon songs and already singles were usually split between the two. McCartney made up for this with “Yesterday” later in the year, a song which stunned the world), “Help!” might have seemed trivial in its day, but when you look at it now you see how much its style influenced so much of what was to come.

...Has ALWAYS been one of my favorite Beatles movie! It's completely insane, full of good, improvisational-style comedy of the Monty Python type, (in fact, I can almost guarantee you that this film and "Hard Day's Night" inspired the Pythons directly, as well as the godforesaken Monkees!) and excellent tunes by JPG&R! Just about everybody from this film went on to very respectable acting careers in film and theatre, especially Leo McKern and Eleanor Bron. Roy Kinnear became Richard Lester's signature supernumerary. And I'm still amazed at Victor Spinetti's strong resemblance to Donald Nixon. A completely zany flick, this film follows the boys as they establish themselves in a new set of linked cottages in a spiffy clean, quaint working class part of, (presumably,) London, with the sight gags starting immediately as an enormous organ pops up out the floor of Paul's section of the cottages; John selects and kisses a copy of his own "Spaniard In The Works"; George instructs a bumpkin to mow his rug with snapping gag dentures and Ringo selects fruit and soda from his own row of vending machines! Enter the villains. In the opening teaser, it is established that a cult that is into human sacrifice has noted that Ringo has possession of a gaudy ring that they have lost that is crucial to their ritual sacrifice. They immediately go to London to re-obtain this ring so they can conduct business as usual and it is up to Eleanor Bron, as the very pretty Ahme, to get the ring from the hapless drummer. Craziness ensues as they chase the fabs from locale to locale to get the ring, first to the recording studio, then an Eastern restaurant in London, then the alps, then to London again and Scotland Yard and then to the Bahamas. About half the movie takes place in the Bahamas where we see the bulk of the music performed in the movie as well, and what we hear is among the Beatles best pre-psychedelic work...in fact, this is the beginning of the Beatles experimenting musically beyond the simple post doo-wop stuff they had BEEN doing up till that point. The very folk-rocky "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" is performed after Ahme comes over to their side and it is perhaps the most moving pre-Rubber Soul/Revolver tune of theirs. The first time I viewed a copy of this movie on VHS, the spoken dialogue in the flick was kind of raspy, but the songs were crystal clear with excellent stereo separation and cleaning up. I have yet to hear an up-to-date copy, and it may be awhile before I do, since MPI has stopped issuing the danged thing! Come ON, people...EMI, Apple...SOMEBODY, get this puppy back on the market! Anyway....George and Paul are the ones who shine the most musically in the film and on the accompanying album, with John singing the incredible "Hide Your Love Away", the boring and overplayed "Ticket To Ride" amd "You're Gonna Lose That Girl". It seems that John, except for "Away" is still somewhat rooted in the earlier days yet with his tunes here, while Paul and George are exploring the fringes of country/folk rock with "I Need You", "Another Girl" and "The Night Before". The film/album is also the first appearance of the sitar in anything by the Beatles, showing up in incidental music in the film. The boys easily out-zany the Marx Brothers in this film, carrying themselves like a clever bunch of high school/college cutups with their own little in-jokes and routines for us to giggle at. Richard Lester became known for directing this sort of zany, farcical stuff, with only occasional forays into regular dramatic moviemaking. Unfortunately, since 1975, he has become very much the ordinary director, after creating masterpieces like "The Three and Four Musketeers", "Robin & Marian", "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and others... This is the Beatles at their all-stops-pulled cleverest, musically, theatrically and otherwise. Their charisma was immediate, and I guarantee you, you will become a fan by the time this movie is over. TOTALLY nuts!

Another reminder of how great the Fab Four was. Their likes will never be seen again! A joy for those of us lucky to have lived through the 60's and an introduction to those who did not.

Producto original, bien presentado. Era lo que esperábamos

Super mooi uitgebreide set van de film help en de extra's er bij, Daarnaast een mooi boek met allemaal foto's, ook een poster, heb verder niet goed gekeken want is een cadeautje voor mijn vriend z'n verjaardag, hij gaat hier heel blij mee zijn!

本当に才能豊かなグループだと改めて感じられる映画だと思います、やはりビートルズは最高ですね。

È una edizione da avere per ogni fan che si rispetti! Mancando un cofanetto per il 50esimo anniversario questo è ben fatto. Il libro è pieno di foto e lo script del film è una vera rarità! Il poster con le foto sono molto belle. La masterizzazione del film e i contenuti speciali danno vita nuova a questo secondo film dei Fab Four!

Excelente película de la mejor banda de música de la historia, el sonido 5.1 es majestuoso y la calidad de imagen a pesar de ser una película vieja es sorprendente, lo único malo es que hubo algunos sonidos que modificaron de la película original como la parte del tigre que se le aparece a Ringo cuando éste cae en la trampa del Bar. Pero si eres un fanático del cuarteto del Liverpool definitivamente debes de tener esta película en tu colección