| The Beatles' second feature was filmed between February and May 1965 at a number of locations including New Providence Island in the Bahamas, the Austrian Alps, London's Cliveden House and Twickenham Film Studios.
After accolades for his performance in "A Hard Day's Night", Ringo was given the starring role in Help! He was cast as the inheritor of a magic ring pursued by members of an evil cult who are hellbent on getting hold of it. As with the first film, all songs, apart from the title track, were written without prior knowledge of the script and dropped into the film, wherever there was any excuse for the boys to start playing. The Beatles later expressed dissatisfaction with "Help!", saying that they'd been no more than extras in their own film. However, it marked the beginning of their most fertile period of songwriting. John wrote the film's title track, using the word 'help' to explore his own anxiety: it was to remain one of his favourite Beatles' songs. Paul's "Yesterday", which was used on the non-soundtrack side of the album, went on to become the most covered of all the Beatles' songs and the first to become an acknowledged classic. Having discovered pot in the autumn of 1964, the Beatles were now smoking the drug regularly and John remembered this as their 'pot period', describing how reels of film had to be scrapped because they consisted of the Beatles in fits of uncontrollable laughter. Help!, the album, was released in August 1965 and topped the charts in Britain and America. As with "A Hard day's Night", the American version consisted only of the songs in the film plus a few tracks by George Martin and an orchestra. |
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