Author’s Note: When The Beatles made this film, they were just two-years into their meteoric rise to worldwide fame – and were still in their “dressing like their fathers” stage – replete with pudding-bowl haircuts! Despite their relative youth – this was not their first film – that accolade went to the 1964 film (also Directed by Richard Lester) entitled “A Hard Day’s Night”! But discredit where discredit is due. I am astonished by the fact that when writing for the booklet included in the 2007 Blu-ray edition of this film – neither Richard Lester (nor Martin Scorsese) mentions the appalling racism! As a modern British person who loves The Beatles music – I have to make a stand and draw a line! Even if the world was a different place – this fact may explain WHY such a film would be made (as Richard Lester correctly observed “There were fewer parking meters!”) – but such a fact should not be used to justify why a Beatles film should read very much like an episode of the now despised (but once disturbingly popular) “Love Thy Neighbour”!
The problem is that The Beatles evolved so much from 1964-1965 to 1969 (and beyond) that the two eras seem almost to apply to two different bands! White Americans were blanket-bombing non-White people throughout Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and beyond! Meanwhile, ‘Black’ people in the US – the bastion of White Power – had armed themselves around the ideology of Marxist-Leninist-Maoism and dared to take on the “racist” White Establishment! Of course, many of the US protests aimed against The Beatles in 1966 originated from the membership of the Ku Klux Klan (who were openly filmed for US and British TV) – representatives of which accused The Beatles of representing “Communism”! In China it was rumoured that Chairman Mao was known to tap his toe to the odd Beatles track! ACW (31.5.2023)
Probably one of the worst (and most offensive) films to be made in the UK during the 1960s – a double tragedy in that it was associated with The Beatles! This is as racially offensive as Bill Flanaghan’s 2010 (anti-China) rant made during his Introduction to the then latest CD releaese of the so-called “Blue Album” (1967-1970) – a reworking of the original 1973 “Greatest Hits”. An interesting point of observation is that neither association with blatant racism appeared to harm The Beatles career at all! Help! is a terrible parody of reality with White people putting on fake accents and blacking (and “browning”) up to their heart’s content. Considering the fact that George Harrison made much of his supposed conversion to Hinduism in his later years – this film deliberately targets and misrepresents that religion whilst demonising the Indian people (and their cuisine)!
The main task of the “Unions” we are told – is to keep the British workforce “White”! And then there are the disturbing allusions to the UK’s association with NATO neo-imperialism and the warmongering of the US toward the USSR! Just why Brian Epstein (The Beatles’ Manager) – as a Jew – would have allowed these deviations is something of a mystery (unless of course, he was a rampaging “Zionist”). The upside is that the Blu-ray is superbly crafted whilst the music remains DISCONNECTED from the script – filmed in an imaginative manner – where each segment could have used as an early video to each track! Ironically, the nearest this film came to a real Indian was an escaped Bengal Tiger – and the best part of the film was shot on its “Whitest” set – the snow-covered fjords of Scandinavia!
I suspect the fact that this film is never shown on TV is that its overtly “racist” script (and generally incoherent storyline) could well be bad for The Beatles ability to continue to reap millions from a few records they made in the 1960s! For instance, whereas Bill Flanaghan can still get away with his “anti-China” comments – if this film had been aired during the George Floyd Protests – I suspect The Beatles’ reputation would have been permanently holed below the waterline and that this would have severely limited their future sales! This just goes to show how one day the current adulation of The Beatles might well not exist – and be turned into its exact opposite! This is what happens when racism is allowed to win when White people fail to confront it appropriately!
Having said all this about the film “Help!” it is vitally important that the movie script (and subsequent acting) must NOT be confused with the album that possesses the same name! The music is superb and quite literally out of this world! Furthermore, the sections of the film within which each track is performed is outstanding in its atmospheric construction! It could be that the apparent racism is ironic and exposing rather than supportive or advocating! I think given how The Beatles developed as a group (and as individuals) this interpretation is preferred – although such an attitude does not wash with many in the contemporary world! I would say that Paul McCartney – within the film – does continuously “question” the implied racism within the script! Even the Salisbury Plain scenes involving the NATO-involved British Army might be “Anti-War” – particularly as cannons are used against modern tanks (perhaps an allusion to the unequal struggles of imperialist conquests)! Of course, in response to this NATO Aggression – the Warsaw Pact countries had developed the T-62 (Tank) during 1962! This was an improvement upon the T-34 Soviet (Red Army) tank that had won WWII for the USSR! The T-62 was an extraordinary tank for its time – with modern Russia currently bringing these machines out of storage as part of the ongoing battle against the US-backed Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine!
Once we move past the uncomfortable surface aspect of the 1965 The Beatles film entitled ‘Help!’ – then we must examine the other layers of creativity that compile the whole experience. For instance, there is a feel very much like The Prisoner (1967) and the Project UFO (1978) series. Although it is far more likely that the film ‘Help!’ probably inspired these projects! I also felt that ‘Help!’ had a vibe very similar to the (1967) film entitled ‘Casino Royale’ – again there is a possibility that ‘Help!’ inspired the writing of this comedy spy thriller! Could it be that ‘Help!’ quite literally inspired a new genre of film making regarding its surreal style, content, timing, visual effects and direction? It is not meant to be understandable in the conventional sense. The flow is discontinuous, and this is deliberate and central to the message of the film. What is message? Do NOT conform! Manourve your way through all the different situations that comprise ‘life’ without becoming ‘stuck’ in anyone set of circumstances that might be experienced. Perhaps this is the ‘Help!’ the film offers.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 