![]() ![]() More importantly, The Beatles themselves simply have much less agency in their second movie: for one of the very few times in their entire career, they look here as if they’re playing second fiddle to the system. Jewish actress Eleanor Bron playing an Indian woman). ")īut even if time helps correct a bit of balance, there is still hardly any doubt that of the two «proper» Beatle movies, A Hard Day’s Night is bound to forever hold the status of critical darling - and it doesn’t help matters, either, that PC pundits these days would be more than happy to bounce upon Help! ’s dated racial stereotypes (" look what you have done with your filthy Eastern ways! ") and casting choices (e.g. In retrospect, this helps a lot: amusingly, every time I rewatch it, Hard Dayʼs Night seems to shrink a little bit in stature, while Help!, on the other hand, seems to grow - not because it is the better movie of the two, but simply because A Hard Day’s Night, with its sociological pretense, has far more potential to be overrated from the start, while Help!, with its «look-at-me-I’m-so-unabashedly-shallow» lack of ambition, may be too much of an initial disappointment for the viewer to notice the finer qualities of its humor. For sure, quality-wise it was still miles ahead of the average contemporary Elvis movie, but only because the gags were seriously funnier and the songs, written by the Beatles themselves rather than commissioned from a bunch of disinterested (and probably underpaid) court songwriters, were incomparable. Where Richard Lesterʼs first experience with the boys bordered on the biographical and, at least in some places, read like a smart jab on the relation crisis between the older and younger generations, Help!, with its absurdist and lightly parodic plot, was clearly just a comic excuse for a bunch of Beatle-acted gags and a handful of Beatle-mimed songs. In all fairness, Help! - the movie - was hardly a great defensive move in this situation. Suddenly, the idea of «progress» - the understanding that the popular music field was the perfect space for honing one’s creativity and using it to transform the world - was up in the air in a way it hadn’t been since at least the Jazz Revolution and having helped, to a far greater extent that they may have realized themselves, to open those floodgates, The Beatles were now founding themselves challenged to defend their royalty status against the rising tide. Things were really happening - and this time around, the Fab Four would find themselves surrounded with mighty impressive competitors, both on the UK and the US scenes. Thus, the Stones came up with ‘The Last Time’ and ‘Satisfaction’, finally proving their worth as original songwriters and creators of a whole new type of rock’n’roll sound the Kinks pumped out single after single in a continuous journey of putting the «British» back into the British Invasion The Beach Boys Today! tremendously raised the stakes in the pop-rock business on the other side of the Atlantic The Byrds were pressing from behind the lines with their ability to fuse folk and rock into a single whole and, of course, Bob Dylan himself was going electric. ![]() Meanwhile, this (somewhat illusive) «procrastination» was giving other artists plenty of time to catch up. In fact, relatively little was heard of The Beatles throughout the first half of 1965, as they’d spent a large chunk of that period «undercover», shooting for their second movie in various locations around the world and taking a rather extended break from touring their only new record releases from January to June were the «teaser» singles - ‘Ticket To Ride’ and ‘Help!’ itself - which certainly whetted public appetite but could hardly satisfy the hunger for another Beatles LP. Tracks: 1) Help! 2) The Night Before 3) You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away 4) I Need You 5) Another Girl 6) You’re Going To Lose That Girl 7) Ticket To Ride 8) Act Naturally 9) It’s Only Love 10) You Like Me Too Much 11) Tell Me What You See 12) I’ve Just Seen A Face 13) Yesterday 14) Dizzy Miss Lizzy.Īlthough the overall critical reputation of Help! traditionally holds it in more esteem than Beatles For Sale - no doubt, due to the presence of such titanic breakthroughs as the title track and ‘Yesterday’ - I do believe that if we place it in its proper context, it may safely be concluded that it is here, really, that the band allowed themselves a bit of a creative sag (at least, in some respects). ![]()
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