Yes, the Beatles. You got a problem with that? Okay, so the fabs aren't really noted for their contributions to the world of comedy…so it falls to us to redress the balance. Anyway, we've got loads of amusing edit-spottage about them so here it is. A splendid time is guaranteed for…ah, fuck it.
1.
The raw footage from the first two films A Hard Day’s Night and Help! is long gone if the video releases are anything to go by. The videos in question make a point of getting very excited if a few seconds of a cut scene feature in an included theatrical trailer (as is the case with Help!). Having said that, an otherwise appalling video on the Making Of A Hard Day’s Night does feature a proper out-take in the form of a (mimed) performance of ‘You Can’t Do That’ which was cut from the film’s TV studio scene. Quite why this has survived over anything else is unknown. Sadly, one’s enjoyment of this out-take is spoiled by having to put up with narrator Phil Collins’ bald divorced views on nothing.
We can say no more..
2.
The eerie tinted exterior shots from the bus during the ‘Flying’ sequence in Magical Mystery Tour are actually out-takes from an altogether better film of the period – Dr Strangelove. Apparently the shots originally looked fantastic in black and white, but dull and dark when tinted. Add to this the fact that the film first went out on BBC 1 (Boxing Day 1967) in black and white anyway (repeated a few days later in colour) and you have tedium as burlesque.
3.
Having already whimsied his way past French customs to film Magical Mystery Tour’s ‘Fool On The Hill’ sequence without the others, Paul McCartney then went one better and got his cock out. The sequence occurs at the moment the second chorus comes in – as we see Macca prancing about like a twat in slow motion over the hill, his trousers are slightly ajar revealing a blurred Asher-guzzled member. Nobody, it transpires, actually noticed Paul’s dick when it was shown, but this may be something to do with the fact that it wasn’t visible on 257 lines.
Paul McCartney grins as his evil plan to
unleash his cock on the BBC is unfurled…
4.
Sadly, when The Beatles got the Fool On The Hill sequence film back from the chemists it revealed that Macca was so engrossed in his wang-waving that he hadn’t bothered timing his lip-syncing properly with the backing track and none of the footage of him miming to the song could be used. Hence what many underground film-makers and Fabs aficionados assume is an arty bit of film-making is actually just a load of cutaways strung together in an attempt to claw back something from an expensive trip to France.
[NOTE: The relevant instalment of Anthology features Magical Mystery Tour out-take footage so we finally get to see Macca lip-syncing to Fool On The Hill. Magical Mystery Tour was one of the first ventures by the group under the banner of Apple Corps and, not yielding to any disposable archive rules, pretty much everything the Beatles produced for themselves exists in rushes form.]
5.
The love sequence between Ivor Cutler and that great big fat woman whose name we forget was cut for that initial transmission by a BBC gentleman who claimed it would offend old people. Whether it was ever reinstated for the other time it was shown by the BBC is unknown.
6.
When Magical Mystery Tour was released on video, great fanfares were blown about its remastering and re-printage from the original negative. However, this doesn’t alter the scratchy intro, some appalling editing and a very odd bit in ‘I Am The Walrus’ where the track appears to have been noticeably varispeeded (in the middle of one of the verses) to stop it from going out of sync.
7.
There are now three different edits of Yellow Submarine - the original American print (which doesn’t feature the song ‘Hey Bulldog’) the original British print (which does), and the 1999 re-mastered version currently available on video and DVD (which does, along with a lot of very surprising extra bits).
There are many theories behind the alternate 1969 prints, the most seductive explanations concerning the US censors’ distaste for the inherent nationalism of bulldogs and the belief that the slavering, four-headed mutt may scare the shit out of America’s kiddywinkies.
The official reason, however, appears to be artistic. When the film was being prepared for its US release, writer Eric Segal met with The Beatles to discuss how the film could be ‘improved’ for an American audience. Paul McCartney simply said, ‘Cut out ‘Hey Bulldog’’. Producer Al Brodax agreed, feeling the sequence to be an incongruous anti-climax. Animation director Jack Stokes was less pleased: he liked the ‘damn funny’ bulldog and was irritated that they inserted ‘all that marching stuff’ which he considered to be ‘bloody stupid’. (Source: Mojo magazine, October 1999)
The ‘marching stuff’ is only present in the original, bulldog-less print, and is absent from the re-master. For the record, the differences (which occur as Ringo places his hole on the huge bubble encasing Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) are as follows:
Original American print (81 minutes):
Ringo places his hole on the bubble, and Sgt Pepper’s band are freed. The intro to ‘Baby You’re A Rich Man’ is heard as the bubble disappears; George remarks that it’s ‘like crystal’, to which Paul observes ‘Hey, they’re decanting!’. The Beatles then groove to the song, while Lennon sings. We cut to the leader of the Blue Meanies who is understandably furious at all the joy taking place. After the line ‘What do you want to be?’, the music ends and we cut to Ringo playing a fanfare; we then pan left for Paul’s ‘Beatles to battle!’ war cry. Cut to rampaging Meanies, closely followed by unfazed Pepperland folk. The leader of the Blue Meanies attempts to fire cannons and guns, but finds that flowers shoot out instead of ammunition. The Beatles consequently run around like idiots. One Meanie attempts to scupper their antics by climbing a ladder and pressing a clown’s nose, which merely results in the words ‘YES’ and ‘OK’ emerging from ground. The clown then throws the Meanie off the ladder and fucks off. There is more rampaging, featuring a Meanie being trampled by a big blue creature. We then cut, rather awkwardly (complete with some out-of-focus camerawork), to Ringo, who spies Jeremy hanging from a tree.
Original British print (85 minutes):
Exactly the same as the American print until after the battle scenes when The Beatles are suddenly cornered by the Blue Meanies’ four-headed bulldog. They hide in a wind-up pianola and sing ‘Hey Bulldog’ while battle takes place around them. The bulldog is eventually defeated by the foliage-propelling guns, although the clown inexplicably sustains an injury from some flowery dynamite. As the song fades, we (less awkwardly than on the American print) join Ringo as he spies Jeremy.
Gorgeous Remastered print (85 minutes):
Sgt Pepper’s band are freed in the same way (complete with the ‘decanting’ joke), but the ‘Baby You’re A Rich Man’ intro is heard only faintly and ends before the first line. There is then a sequence where The Beatles meet their doppelgangers, resulting in a sizeable amount of dialogue (‘I’m the alter-ego man,’ says Lennon. ‘And I am the ego man, goo goo g’jook [sic],’ his double replies). Noticing that there’s a war on, the Lennons remark ‘Shall we hence?’; we then pan right to Paul who remarks ‘Oh, let’s not waste any more time sitting on the hence’ before giving his war cry. Ringo’s fanfare then takes place after this, but he shits himself when he sees all the flying arrows and quickly departs. The Beatles then confront the bulldog and the rest is pretty much as per the original British print.
[NOTE: Since the original British print never showed the meeting between The Beatles and Sgt Pepper's band, the relevance of their tacheless doppelgangers popping up to confuse the bulldog was rather lost, leading one to suspect that the designers were either having an off-day with their Beatle-drawings or that it was originally a pilot sequence for the film which (with the real-life-flesh-and-blood-and-on-heroin Beatles continually experimenting with their facial hair) was left open, design-wise).
[NOTE: The actual shout of 'Beatles To Battle' is a more subdued take on the remastered edition and it's possible that it was redubbed a lot more recently.
[NOTE: Another bit in the remastered version not present in the original prints was during the 'All You Need Is Love' sequence where George Harrison leaps from the statue of Sgt Pepper and floats downwards quoting his cartoon catchphrase 'It's all in the mind, y'know'. Instead, it cuts straight from Ringo's 'Y'took the words right out of my mouth, John' to a screaming meanie. Ironically the sequence was used in original 1969 trailers for the film.]
8.
The Beatles' real-life cameo at the close of the film sees them wearing black against a black background. This is terrifically out of place compared the the psychedelia of the preceding scenes but the original plan was for the producers to key off the blackness and add some psychedelic colours using 1969 technology. Unfortunately time and money ran out and the sequence was left untampered with.
9.
There was an initial plan to release a ‘proper’ soundtrack LP to Yellow Submarine which would utilise The Beatles’ songs, George Martin’s orchestral score and the dialogue track from the film. This plan was scuppered, and the LP instead featured Beatle songs on one side (the title track, the four new songs, and ‘All You Need Is Love’, which - at that point - was unavailable on any other Beatles album*), and Martin’s score on side two (which was re-recorded, for some reason). In September 1999, a rip-off ‘Songtrack’ was released to tie in with the re-released film: this ignored Martin’s incidental music in favour of 15 songs from the film (including the fleetingly-used ‘Love You To’ and ‘Baby You’re A Rich Man’, although not ‘A Day In The Life’ or ‘Within You Without You’). Whether the original Yellow Submarine soundtrack will be deleted as a result remains unclear; we hope not, since a world without Martin’s sumptuous ‘Pepperland’ theme would be a very drab place.
[*Note (1): ‘All You Need Is Love’ is on the Magical Mystery Tour album, but this was initially an American release only, and - imports aside - wasn’t available in the UK until 1987. Said album featured songs from the film on one side, and sundry singles and b-sides on the other. In the 60s, it was not considered the done thing to plunder singles from LPs (or vice versa, hence the absence of material from Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul et al on the original Yellow Submarine soundtrack), and the five new songs from Magical Mystery Tour were initially released as a double-EP only.]
[Note (2): The ‘Songtrack’ runs at 45 minutes, meaning that Martin’s underscore could still have been included on the same disc. Recently, newer and bluer Meanies have been cited within the vicinity of Apple HQ...]
[NOTE (3): On the other hand the release does feature new proper-stereo remixes of the songs which make better use of the soundscape/surroundsound possibilities. Of course this opens up the perennial question of purity – should those original mixes be left as they are or ‘improved’ for subsequent generations. It is equally possible for instance to enjoy the nice distorted mono of the original Yellow Sub film as much as the lovely ridiculous stereo mix of the remaster, albeit for different reasons. Paul McCartney loves the remastered audio and feels that, with the surroundsound, he’s ‘actually in the middle of the orchestra’. Well, maybe he is.
Incidentally the Songtrack isn’t the first time updated mixes of Beatles songs have been attempted. Much of the ground work for what later became the Anthology set was undertaken by EMI studio engineer John Barrett in 1982 who lived long enough to see his projected Beatles out-takes LP Sessions rejected by the band before dying of cancer. A lot of his tapes leaked out onto bootlegs and revealed ‘proper’ stereo remixes of lots of classic Beatles songs.
A final note on this. The purest of the purists refuse to touch anything labelled ‘Stereo’ by the Beatles, denouncing it as second best when compared to the original mono mixes.
The monos are much sought-after by collectors – the mixes are usually nicer, crisper and better realised. The mono of Sgt Pepper, it is said, took ages to mix and featured all the Beatles in attendance. The stereo was completed alone by George Martin and he took him about ten minutes. Quite why Apple, who usually don’t miss a trick, haven’t released the monos as ‘collectors editions’ is a mystery. Many classic 60s LPs for instance are currently available with both the stereo and mono mixes on the same disc. The recent Who compilation ‘My Generation’ featured mono mixes of the early singles, a decision which bowed to public demand.
All the Beatles LPs have corresponding mono bootlegs, although the first four were released on CD in mono anyway and have corresponding stereo bootlegs (which rather kills the argument). Stereo was a new thing in the 60s and most producers decided to have fun with it rather than create listenable mixes. The Beatles stereo usually separates the tracks ridiculously – drums and guitar in one speaker, bass and vocals in the other – and the reasoning behind this appears to be George Martin’s keenness to delay the advent of stereo. Quite why he’d want to do this is something that’s puzzling us at the moment too…]
10.
The cinema-verite of Let It Be resulted in hours and hours of rushes which were cobbled together – with McCartney at the helm – into a rather sad and depressing documentary. Two locations are shot –Twickenham Studios, where the band rehearse the new LP (then called ‘Get Back’) and Apple, where they attempt to record it. A standing rule by the director meant that any footage featuring anybody other than the band didn’t make the final edit, though one such sequence, featuring an impromptu visit from one Peter Sellers (who, at that time was quite friendly with Ringo, they having worked on the 1968 film The Magic Christian) was presumably dropped due to its various references to chemical refreshment:
LENNON
Remember when I gave you that grass in Piccadilly?
SELLERS I do…(Unintelligible)…it really stoned me outta my mind - Acapulco Gold, wasn't it?
LENNON Exactly.
SELLERS It was really fantastic. I don't know if I'm still holding any…right now, I'm sorry.
LENNON No, I…I've given up y'know…
SELLERS (Laughs) Yeah.
LENNON …as stated by hunger, damn yer (?)…and the ‘Beatles actual life story’… (refers to the rolling cameras)
Sellers and Yoko laugh
SELLERS (Lapses into Yank accent) Well I'm sorry bout that, fellahs, but I, y'know, if I'd kind of known I was gonna see yers I would have had some on me…
LENNON Yup…yup…yup…
SELLERS …'cos I know how you love it.
LENNON Dig!
SELLERS True, I dig…
MACCA Gotcha, Pete.
SELLERS Got it. And, um…
MACCA Can you dig it?
SELLERS Oh yes, I can dig it.
UNKNOWN VOICE You wanna make the scene to the Gents lavatory?
SELLERS That's a groove.
They bugger off.
LENNON Just don't leave the needles lyin' around. We've got a bad reputation now with 'John getting busted' and that. I know what it's like for showbiz people, they're under a great strain and they need a little relaxation. It's a choice between that and exercise y'know, and drugs win, hand down. I say hand down.
YOKO Shooting is exercise…
11.
All biographies about this period base the band’s mood on the final cut of the film, continually making reference to a slight sarky comment George Harrison makes towards Paul McCartney in the Twickenham rehearsal sequence. However, the rushes of the film have been heavily bootlegged over the years, spawning countless pirate LPs, and these reveal little more than a vague disinterest on the part of the band. For the most part the atmosphere is jovial. The edit of the film obviously intended to kill the band, or at least bring it to a roundabout end.
12.
The film has yet to be released on video but has been oft bootlegged from a very watchable quality copy, coupled with some out-takes (quality ranging from good to horrible).
[NOTE: Some out-takes feature an extended jam session between Yoko Ono and the Beatles (apart from George Harrison who'd gone off in a huff). Clips from this jam have actually been officially released on a Yoko Ono video that we can't recall the name of.]
[NOTE (2): Huge chunks of the Let It Be rushes were used in the final instalment of Anthology and it's hoped that when they finally get round to releasing the film more footage will be included.]
[NOTE (3): The infamous 'Commonwealth' song, not to mention the even more infamous 'No Pakistanis' version of 'Get Back', jammed at the Twickenham rehearsals were notable for their absence during the Anthology project. The former song, a jokey satire on Enoch Powell's 'Rivers Of Blood' silliness was alluded to in the text of the big bulky photobook which came with original copies of the Let It Be LP. The song 'Get Back' originally featured a third verse about a Pakistani living in a council flat ('All de fools around don't dig no Pakistanis taking all de peoples jobs…'). Strangely this verse was cut by the time George Harrison brought Billy Preston in to play the keyboard solo on the song.
BEATLES FILMS ON BRITISH TV
Much like The Great Escape, Beatles films have become a mythical fixture in our memories of Christmas past. Also much like The Great Escape, an actual examination of the facts reveals how hazily deceptive such memories can be. Over the past 30+ years (starting with the 1967 Boxing Day premiere of Magical Mystery Tour on BBC1), the five Beatles films have, in fact, been shown very seldomly. The BBC had the rights to screen the first two movies from 1970, where A Hard Day’s Night and Help! began alternating in the Christmas schedules, but this came to a halt in 1975 with the premiere of Let It Be. In August 1976, four of the films were broadcast as part of a summer season, but fans complained that Magical Mystery Tour (the rights for which had yet to be re-negotiated) was absent. In 1979, the BBC belatedly placated fans with a ‘Beatles Over Christmas’ season, featuring all five films, plus the 1965 Shea Stadium concert. Following the last recorded transmission of Let It Be in 1982, the films have since been (occasionally) networked by ITV and Channel 4.
Anyway, here’s a nice list, filched from Keith Badman’s superb chronicle The Beatles: After The Break Up (which doesn’t have a cocking index, for some reason):
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
BBC1: 28 December 1970 (Mon
4:05pm)
BBC1: 27 December 1971 (Mon 9:40pm)
BBC1: 26 December
1973 (Wed 10:30am)
BBC1: 3 August 1976 (Tue 6:45pm)
BBC2: 25
December 1979 (Tue 3pm)
C4: c1992 (Sun, c3pm)*
ITV
(Networked): 28 February 1993 (Sun around 1am)
HELP!
BBC1: 6 July
1971 (Tue 7:30pm)
BBC1: 26 December 1972 (Tue 3:30pm)
BBC1: 26
December 1974 (Thur 10:30am)
BBC1: 10 August 1976 (Tue
6:45pm)
BBC2: 22 December 1979 (Sat 6:35pm)
BBC1: 9 December
1980 (Tue 7:30pm)**
ITV (Networked): 28 February 1993 (Sun around
2:30am)
ITV (HTV Wales): August 1994 (Sun, c3pm)***
ITV
(Central): 1 January 1995 (Sun 12:05am)
MAGICAL MYSTERY
TOUR
BBC1: 26 December 1967
BBC2: 5 January
1968
BBC2: 21 December
1979 (Fri, 6:10pm)
YELLOW
SUBMARINE
BBC1: 15 April 1974 (Easter Mon
7:40pm)
BBC1: 17 August 1976 (Tue 6:45pm)
BBC2: 24 December
1979 (Mon 5:40pm)
BBC2: 3 January 1986 (Fri)
BBC2: 5, 6 &
8 October 1988 (Mon, Tue & Thur, around 6pm)****
C4: 16 June
1991 (Sun, 2pm)
C4: 27 March 1997 (Thur, 6pm)
LET IT BE
BBC1: 26
December 1975 (Fri 10:55am)
BBC1: 24 August 1976 (Tue
6:50pm)
BBC2: 26 December 1979 (Wed 5:50pm)
BBC2: 8 May
1982 (Sat 3:10pm)
[*NOTE (1): Badman doesn’t record it, but we distinctly remember A Hard Day’s Night being shown around this time. It was certainly shown between 1979 and 1993 anyway.]
[**NOTE (2): The 9/12/80 transmission of Help! was, of course, a rather tasteless tribute to Lennon.]
[***NOTE (3): The 1994 HTV Wales transmission of Help! is also not logged by Badman, although we definitely remember it.]
[***NOTE (4): Here, Yellow Submarine was split into three parts and broadcast as part of BBC2’s youth-programming strand Def II.]
