HELP! (1965)

To say that 1965 was an illustrious year for The Beatles and Richard Lester would be a serious understatement. The iconic rock band were in full swing in the ‘Beatlemania’ craze, consistently touring to capitalise on their success. They also managed to squeeze enough time to release two albums, Help! and Rubber Soul, with the latter marking an important step in their artistic progression, with more mature songwriting and a greater emphasis on creating an artistically satisfying album rather than a compilation of enjoyable songs. As for Lester, the British director released the sex comedy The Knack… and How to Get It, which won the Palme d’Or at the 18th Cannes Film Festival. He also reunited with The Beatles that year to direct Help!, a follow-up to their critically acclaimed and commercially successful film A Hard Day’s Night (1964).

Both films are similar in that they look to capitalise off of the band’s albums of the same name, with plenty of musical numbers interspersed throughout each feature. But while A Hard Day’s Night won over critics, Help! was seen as something of an afterthought, especially given that the film moved away from focusing on The Beatles and the fanfare they inspired, instead serving as a 90-minute Bond parody with Beatles songs interspersed throughout it. Both films are difficult to judge as films, seeing as they hardly offer a full cinematic experience, and are instead smattered by occasional bits of fun in a plot that’s always falling apart and just barely keeping itself intact. Thankfully, the title tracks of both albums are near-perfect companion pieces to the scenes—and overall projects—they’re paired with, though the rest of the songs are usually just an excuse to play more music from the beloved band for their ardent fans.

The fast-paced editing style of the first film works wonders when depicting the swarming supporters of The Beatles running with the eagerness of ravenous zombies through city streets, desperate to catch even a glimpse of the band members. Fellini transformed life into a bittersweet carnival in most of his films, while Lester makes silly, inane ones that nonetheless throb with propulsive energy once those familiar voices and notes appear. The key difference between it and Help! is that, amidst some silliness that never feels like it’s found a compelling common ground for its jokes to land, A Hard Day’s Night actually has a point.

The Beatles are shepherded by, well, just about everyone on Earth. They’re incessantly followed by adoring fans, hounded with repetitive questions by journalists, and pushed into various boxes that they keep trying to break out of. They are trapped, run for freedom, relish it briefly, and are trapped again. It’s an enjoyable formula for a film that continually threatens to swing wildly and fall off balance, instead grounding The Beatles as counter-culture figures eager to resist whatever forces seek to hem them into a specific bracket. Help! has none of that, since it’s not about The Beatles at all; it just happens to feature them.

But while Help! might be severely lacking a central point, that doesn’t make its existence worthless. It took a second viewing for me to want to look past the weightless plot and attempt to make sense of how frequently it zigzags, upon which point a more clever film emerges, with humorous sight gags and rapid-fire jokes, stated with such little force that you might be likely to miss a few of them amidst the frivolous, chaotic plot. Out of the band members, only John is a competent actor (though the weakest of the lot, Ringo, showed some improvement over his performance in A Hard Day’s Night; there’s a ghastly moment early on in that film where it sounds like he’s reading aloud the words ‘ha ha ha’ instead of actually laughing).

On a first viewing, I was so focused on the movie’s existence being a joke to recognise that, within a silly storyline that warrants little thought, quite a lot of effort has gone into Help!’s offbeat, almost humble sense of humour. Whether it’s the half-hearted line delivery or the fact that Lester always seems as if he’s impatiently looking for the next wacky thing to dangle in front of the audience, there’s a distinct lack of forcefulness to these jokes. It doesn’t make them more sophisticated, just harder to spot or appreciate. But they’re amusing all the same.

The Beatles themselves also get up to a large number of enjoyable antics. There’s no meaning behind the escapism that drives them out of the arms of kidnappers of all kinds, but at least this presents a through line between this film and its predecessor. In this case, John, Paul, George, and Ringo aren’t fleeing celebrity, but the clutches of evil scientists and a deranged cult based on real-life Thuggee cults. They are all desperate to retrieve a sacrificial ring that has found its way to Ringo, and is now stuck on his finger. The cult is comprised of numerous white actors portraying obviously Indian characters, with stereotypical music evoking the outdated notion of orientalism to signify their presence. It’s certainly one of the milder racist stereotypes of ’60s cinema, but its lack of timelessness in this regard is worth noting.

The biggest downside of these overarching villains is that they’re not very interesting. A few funny instances of miscommunication involving the cult and other lookalike groups gives way to a desperately one-note set of antagonists, with The Beatles slipping out of their grasp on what feels like dozens of occasions. By attempting to outdo the silliness of its predecessor, Help! feels as if it possesses no stylistic, thematic, tonal, or emotional anchor, like a bull captivated by a succession of shiny red objects, never sticking with anything concrete for long.

The film chases frivolity from each of its (extremely short-lived) obsessions, with constant opportunities for escape for these protagonists, many of which are just excuses for them to break out into song. Since Help! isn’t a concert film by any means, nor does it have anything to say about celebrity, these musical numbers have the immensely good fortune of being performed by talented musical artists, since otherwise they would have no merit whatsoever. So, even when some songs don’t mesh well with the surrounding plot, they are at least enjoyable to listen to.

The repetition of the title track provides an appropriate accompaniment to the movie’s madcap plot, with it also being used to great success as an instrumental late in the film, deployed when all hell breaks loose between its many characters. The quest isn’t just fruitless; it’s meaningless. As is Help!, in a lot of ways. But it’s also plenty enjoyable to watch this movie’s many gags and notice how much it cares about crowding this cinematic experience with laughs, all while it treats its existence as the biggest joke of them all.

UK | 1965 | 92 MINUTES | 1.66:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Richard Lester.
writers: Marc Behm & Charles Wood (story by Marc Behm).
starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Eleanor Bron, Roy Kinnear, Leo Mckern & John Bluthal.