![]() GEORGE HARRISON WAS FIRST TURNED ON TO SITAR MUSIC DURING THE FILM’S PRODUCTION. ![]() Luckily, thanks to The Beatles’ lack of enthusiasm to write a song called “Eight Arms to Hold You” and a legal loophole involving an exclamation point, the film was able to proceed as Help! 2. In the book accompanying the film’s 2007 DVD re-release, Lester claims that he had wanted to call the movie Help from the get-go, but the title had already been registered. In celebration of the film's 50th anniversary, here are 15 things you might not have known about The Beatles’ second brush with Hollywood stardom.Īt first listen, “Eight Arms to Hold You” sounds like a nice idea: who wouldn’t want to be held by all four Beatles, right? But when Lester reveals that the Ringo Starr-suggested title was in fact a reference to the multi-armed statue of Kaili that appears in the film, and not a teenage girl’s fantasy of being cradled by The Fab Four, much of the romantic element fades away. Help! premiered in London on July 29, 1965, and made its way stateside the following month. But, fortunately for everyone who’s ever seen Help!, they opted instead to put their talents to good use, infusing the story with their trademark wit, charm, and-most importantly-seven quintessential Beatles tunes. These guys probably could have gotten away with just lying on a Bahamian beach for the last 20 minutes of the movie and it still would have been a hit. And let’s not forget that it starred The Beatles, who were at the height of their fame at the time. The movie further established Lester as one of the more daring directors of the period, and he helped (no pun intended) to usher in the music video format that would become standard over the next several decades. Its weak, politically incorrect plot aside, Help! is an iconic piece of 1960s moviemaking (a gushing Martin Scorsese even penned the introduction to the film’s 2007 DVD re-release). For their second go-round, The Beatles re-teamed with A Hard Day’s Night director Richard Lester for a madcap, globe-trotting romp that had them fighting off a kooky, Indian-esque (or “Eastern,” as they were called) cult determined to sacrifice a hapless Ringo to their deity, Kaili. After the success of the cinema verité-style film A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr decided to go bigger and brighter for their second movie, Help! (quite literally: unlike its predecessor, Help! was in color). The Beatles never claimed to be great actors, but it sure looked like they were having a ball whenever they appeared on the big screen.
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