They misspelled “Eight Arms to Hold You”.
but in reality, in the UK release they were spelling NUJV, which is the abbreviation of bad Swahili for “Paul has been dead for ages, honestly”
or NVUJ in the American release, which is bad Swahili for “Have you a water buffalo?”
Capitol scammed Beatles fans in the USA from the start, removing songs from the British versions in order to package them together for additional albums. It wasn’t until “Sgt. Pepper” that they stopped, and only because the Beatles insisted that the album was to be released exactly as it was in Britain. They also frequently had Capitol producers re-edit George Martin’s carefully-planned monaural production by adding fake stereo to the American versions.
Capitol was a lousy record company when it came to Pop music. They only lucked into the Beatles through a distribution agreement with EMI in Britain. And even then, they dragged their feet on releasing the Beatles in America. An example of how clueless they were involved “A Hard Day’s Night.” The movie was released by United Artists, which also had a record label. Capitol gave away the rights to the album of the movie soundtrack to UA, because they thought that by the time the movie was released, the Beatles would have fizzled-out. UA had offices in Britain and knew what was happening, and happily accepted Capitol’s misguided gift.
It was a TV special, not really a feature film.
Most viewers don’t notice that two different people did the voice of George Harrison in the movie. (Three if you count Harrison himself appearing in the end scene.) Peter Batten was originally hired to play Harrison. But midway through the production he was arrested and Paul Angelis (who was doing Ringo Starr’s voice) stepped in and did the rest of Harrison’s lines.
Capitol was owned by EMI in Britain! Their obsequious attitude toward their subsidiary in the early 1960s was a corporate curiosity.
Well, yeah, except “Beatles 65” is arguably a better compilation than the concurrent British releases.
I read once that the Beatles chose not to provide their voices for the YS movie because they were disappointed in those crappy Beatles cartoon shorts.
But when they they saw pre-release portions of YS and realized that it was quality work, they agreed to appear as themselves in the brief live-action epilogue.
What kills me is that the voice of Paul is done by none other than Hyacinth Bucket’s brother-in-law, the eternally sleeveless Onslow! (Geoffrey Hughes)
My good friend and I saw Help! at the now-defunct Texas theater on Houston Street in San Antonio when we were seniors in high school. We sat through it three times because we liked it and because we couldn’t understand a word the boys were saying. Now, after 50 years of Masterpiece Theater, not to mention in more recent years, AcornTV and Britbox, we do better with non-RP UK accents.
I agree with every word of this.
“Say no more.”
“I shall say no more.”
This movie is the source of about half of out family catchphrases (Princess Bride being responsible for most of the rest). In addition to “Say no more.”/“I can say no more.” and “Fiendish thingy” (remember the hard “g”) mentioned above:
- “Go to the
window{insert destination}.” - “I’m going to miss the sacrifice!”
- “Ho! Ho ho! Ho ho ho!”
- “There’s more here than meets the eye.”
- “With this {whatever} I could — dare I say it — rule the world.”
Also my reaction when presented with a ridiculous/impossible assertion: “It’s the brain drain. My brain’s draining.”
(hijack)
I wouldn’t call that a compilation. It was 60% of the contemporaneous UK album Beatles for Sale, 20% covers, 10% the single of the time (“I Feel Fine”), and 10% a great song left off the US version of AHDN (“I’ll Be Back”).
But I know what you mean, and I sort of agree.
“All the blood’s rushing to me 'ead!”
Though it’s been so long, I hope I’m quoting it right.
A stick of gum: “Is it habit-forming?” “Only if you swallow it.”
As noted by @teelabrown in a post above, the trivia page on Help! at the IMDB has tons of interesting little tidbits.
Likewise the quotes page (the page before).
Ringo: What was it that first attracted you to me?
John: Well, you’re very polite, aren’t you?
This thread is getting pretty long, I think it’s time for an intermission.
Raises hand. It’s a trivia question I ask. Though with A Hard Day’s Night, I go with Ringo created the title.
long rambling story
The story goes they went outside after a long session, Ringo said something like “That was a hard day…” Looked up, saw it was dark. “… night.” Later, when they were trying to think of a movie name, they mentioned it to the producer, who got the approval, then told John one evening, “You gotta make a song now. Can’t have a movie title without a song.” “About what?” “A hard day’s night.” “What’s it about?” “I dunno – you’re the song writer.” So John and Paul came back the very next morning with a full song. The movie was already done, so it’s the only song they didn’t sing on camera.
I like AHDN better than Help! – if only because it was more realistic Beatles (though not really). Help! was a cartoonish version of the Beatles. Though their combined flats were pretty cool, between the bed pit, the organ coming up, the food machines, and the grass floor.
Oh, and “He’s very clean.”
I think Who fans and Beatle fans are the same age.
True but irrelevant. I was making fun of the harmless-ness of a bunch of twelve-year-olds packed together for a Beatles movie, and went for the most extreme example of people packed together getting into an event.
Looking for a reductio ad absurdum, I went all the way to the Who concert (in Cincinnati) where people were crushed trying to get in.
I’ve noticed the same. I think it’s because Ringo’s the everyman of the group. (Even HE said once in real life, “What’s a scruff like me doing with all this lot?”) He’s not the genius songwriter/performer that the other three are (or at least, that wasn’t his image in pop culture at the time…later he’d show that he was a capable songwriter). He’s more the regular guy that lucked into a place in the greatest band of all time…and, as such, is easier for the audience to relate to.