A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles' comic pseudo-biopic, is
widely considered one of the one hundred greatest films ever made. The Citizen
Kane of rock films stands on its own as brilliant comedy with actors who each
fully realized their roles. From Paul and his grandfather to Ringo's "This Boy" segment, the film is utterly charming and endearing. HELP! didn’t have that
same appeal, but the colors, the comedy, the songs and espionage tie-in worked
to make The Beatles' second venture equally watchable. The Beatles's third film, and definitely
the weirdest,
Magical Mystery Tour, failed instead on so many levels, while what was most important,
the music, was one of The Beatles' triumphs. Mired in complications, a lack of
script and an overconfidence that had to come with the Fab Four's miraculous
success, MMT just didn’t work. Essential the strategy was get high, get on a
bus, see what happens. Here in the U.S., our first look was two showings
at the Fillmore East on August 11, 1968; Americans spared any other exposure to a
film that they just couldn’t "get," until its wide release in 1975. 50 years
later, we should be celebrating the American release of the LP as joyously as
we did Sgt. Pepper.
Essentially, in the way of a script, The Beatles tried to explore on
film what Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters did on the school bus dubbed "Further" earlier in the decade (read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). The film starts out as Mr. Richard Starkey, who is constantly bickering
with his aunt, purchases a ticket to the titular Mystery Tour. Mystery Tours to
unknown locations were all the rage in England at the time, and ideal fodder
for comedy. Once on the tour bus, stuff happens, allegedly at the whim of
"four or five magicians," and in the end everyone goes to a strip
club. That's about it.
Basically,
the Beatles and a bus full of other people drove around for two weeks, wrote the
script (an impromtu beast that McCartney called "the Scrupt"),
filmed things on a whim and hoped something magical would happen. Instead,
many of the incidents
and complications that plagued the shoot were more interesting than the film
itself. It was envisioned for theaters, but instead aired on BBC 1 on December 26, 1967.
In glorious black and white! This was
especially erroneous for the "Flying" sequence, which was simply
filmed abstract colors and shapes; a lot of nothing on black and white TV. One could view the film as The Beatles' first misstep, signaling the events that would eventually lead to the band's
break-up. As time goes by Magical Mystery Tour has been re-appreciated
as a charming time document with surreal comedy ahead of it time,
though this writer has tried on so many occasions to even like it, let alone find it
redeeming. Interestingly, I do like it, but in the way that I like Hot Rods to
Hell or Panic in Year Zero.
"We
knew most of the scenes we wanted to include," said John, "but we
bent our ideas to fit the people concerned once we got to know our cast. If
somebody just wanted to do something we hadn't planned they went ahead. If it
worked we kept it in. There was a lovely little 5-year old girl, Nicola, on the
bus. Because she was there and because we realized she was right for it, we put
in a bit where I just chat to her and give her a balloon." It’s one of the
film’s elements that actually works. Keep in mind that Americans have never
been particularly keen on British comedy. There are Benny Hill fans indeed, but
there are more people who claim to love Monty Python although have rarely gone
beyond The Holy Grail.
