While The Beatles are best known for their music, they did attempt to do some acting in A Hard Day’s Night and Help!. Both movies were musical comedies that performed well at the box office as many wanted to listen to the catchy tracks and see the fab four on the silver screen. George Harrison liked both of The Beatles’ scripted movies but couldn’t watch the Let it Be documentary, and his reasoning is understandable.
The Beatles starred in three movies in their tenure
The Beatles became wildly popular in the early 1960s thanks to their hit songs and albums. The next step for the band was to move into movies, a move that wasn’t particularly common for rock stars. However, United Artists saw box office gold and wanted to capitalize on their popularity. So, they got The Beatles to star in their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night.
The 1964 movie was a box office success and featured a soundtrack that performed well on the charts. The studio wanted to keep the hot streak going and quickly got to work on Help!. While this movie was also a hit, The Beatles didn’t have the best time filming it as it clashed with their busy schedule. However, they still had to fulfill an agreement for a third film, so they agreed to do an animated film, Yellow Submarine, in which they had little involvement besides their music.
The final movie they starred in was Let it Be, a documentary that captured footage from the recording session for what would be their final album. The documentary is considered controversial in The Beatles’ history because it essentially showed the collapse of The Beatles as tensions within the band led to their break up. It’s a fascinating film that was restored and redeemed in 2021 with The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+.
George Harrison thought ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’ were ‘adequate’ movies
George Harrison was a cinephile who started his own production company, Handmade Films. The Beatles all had mixed emotions about making movies, but Harrison was excited to get into Hollywood. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in 1987 (shared via Far Out), Harrison shared his thoughts on The Beatles’ first two movies: A Hard Day’s Night and Help!.
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The “Here Comes the Sun” singer acknowledged that the films aren’t amazing, but they’re “adequate,” and he said director Richard Lester did his best to save them from The Beatles’ terrible acting.
“But it was adequate and considering we were all pretty useless in acting. I think Dick Lester should take a lot of credit because it was his ability and his experience with comedy that he had done before with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and stuff. He had a great sense of humor, and he had a great ability to let us be what we were. I think that all worked out good. There were plenty of songs, catchy little tunes, and that was fine. I think Help! had to step up a bit, it was a big color film. But still pretty funny, even in a slightly dumb way.”
George Harrison couldn’t watch ‘Let it Be’ because it showed the downfall of The Beatles
Harrison also shared his thoughts on Let it Be with Entertainment Tonight. While he thinks there are some good scenes, he said it’s hard for him to watch because it captures a difficult moment from his life. It wasn’t a great experience for him, and he doesn’t want to relive it.
“The scenes, like we on the roof, that was quite good. There’s bits and pieces, it’s okay,” Harrison said. “But most of it just makes me so aggravated, so I can’t watch it. Because it was a particularly bad experience that we were having at that time. It’s bad enough when you’re having it. Let alone having it filmed and recorded. So you’ve got to watch it for the rest of your life. I don’t like it.”
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