But I would have never made the obvious connection for example, to the scene where the recording engineer asks "who is buzzing?" in one scene. The culprit in the movie is of course the cultists chainsawing a hole under Ringo's drum kit - but the inside joke becomes more obvious today given what we know now about the Beatles' fondness for pot at the time.
I also really like the extras on the standard release. The booklet is modest, but really, really informative. It goes into detail for example about how they arrived on the final title of Help!, after rejecting Ringo's suggestion of "Eight Arms To Hold You" - effectively blowing my ace-in-the-hole on rock trivia night at my local bar. I also like the way that the book explains how and why the exclamation point was added to the eventual title of Help!.
Seeing the original trailers for the film (one of which I referenced above) is also really cool. Likewise, I found the present day interviews with everyone from director Richard Lester, to actors like Victor Spinetti and Eleanor Bron (one of my earliest childhood fantasies as the ultra sexy cult babe Ahme in the film) to be highly informative.
And then there is of course the music.
As a kid, when I bought the soundtrack for Help!, I always used to skip past the orchestral score, just to get to the Beatles tunes. I never got the point of all that orchestra music back then. But it actually makes sense now. In addition to the James Bond sort of feel of those songs, you also hear how they were incorporating things like sitar into the mix - no doubt due to the George Harrison influence.
And to this day, "The Night Before," which is only available on this soundtrack, remains one of my favorite Beatles songs.
Correction. Help! is here.
Article comments
1 - Brad Laidman
To me Help! is also Austin Powers Thirty or so years before the fact.
2 - Colin Ricketts
Thank you for the memories Glen, I penned a couple of words about how I think Help! is very underrated as an album... Yere tis I still stand by what I said about the film though, it hasn't dated well to my eyes (I'm only in my thirties, The Beatles, with whom I have an unhealthy obsession were long gone by the time I saw sunshine), even though I really like quite a lot of those swingin' sixties supercamp spy thangs. I think Help! collapses under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
3 - Tom Johnson
Oh, man, Glen, I think you got me wrong - I thoroughly endorse the regular edition. It's the wallet-gouging of the deluxe that makes me want to vomit. The movie itself is a fun little thing that will be on my Christmas list for sure - I caught it on cable the weekend before this came out and got distracted toward the end and still have yet to see if Ringo managed to escape being sacrificed. ;-)