Line #22 Trivia/Help


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-Music/TheBeatles '''[[Trivia/TheBeatles Main Trivia Page]]'''\
2	''Trivia/PleasePleaseMe'' \| ''Trivia/WithTheBeatles'' \| ''Trivia/AHardDaysNight'' \| ''Trivia/BeatlesForSale'' \| '''''Help!''''' \| ''Trivia/RubberSoul'' \| ''Trivia/{{Revolver\|BeatlesAlbum}}''\
3	''Trivia/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' \| ''Trivia/MagicalMysteryTour'' \| ''Trivia/TheWhiteAlbum'' \| ''Trivia/YellowSubmarine'' \| ''Trivia/AbbeyRoad'' \| ''Trivia/LetItBe''\
4	''Trivia/PastMasters'' \| ''Trivia/TheBeatlesAnthology'' \| ''Trivia/TheBeatlesGetBack''-]]]]]
5	----
6
7	!!The film
8	* {{Corpsing}}:
9	** When the Eastern cult members are breaking into the Beatles' home, John hits one of them with a telephone, saying "Oh, sorry, I hit him..."
10	** In the "Another Girl" scene, Paul pretends to play bass by using a girl. While "strumming", [[ThanksForTheMammaries his hand briefly skims her top]], and he visibly chuckles.
11	* CreatorBacklash:
12	** Music/JohnLennon hated this film when he looked back on it in 1970. In fact, the band as a whole wasn't too fond of the end product, feeling like they were extras in their own movie. By 1980, John had warmed up to the film a bit, calling it a precursor to ''Series/Batman1966'', but still stuck to his main complaint that Creator/RichardLester never really explained to the band what the movie was about or the tone he was going for, but also admitted that all four Beatles were "smoking marijuana for breakfast" during the filming, and probably ''were'' told, but didn't listen.
13	** Charles Wood, who wrote the shooting script (adapting the initial screenplay by Marc Behm) later said "It was just an assignment. I don't think I did a particularly good job."
14	* CutSong:
15	** "That Means a Lot" was written for the film, but the Beatles were not satisfied with their performance of the song and they gave it to P.J. Proby, who released it as a single.
16	** "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See" were rejected for use in the film by Richard Lester, though they did appear on the album.
17	* DeletedRole: A sequence featuring Creator/FrankieHowerd (as Sam Ahab) and Creator/WendyRichard was filmed but left out of final editing owing to its length. However, the sequence was left in the film novelisation.
18	* DeletedScene:
19	** Footage for a few deleted scenes has been floating around. One of the most prominent ones is for a scene in which Music/TheBeatles attend The Sam Ahab School of Transcendental Elocution. While there, they, Sam Ahab, and another student known as "Lady Macbeth" are hypnotized by the cult's "Go to the Window" music, except for George, who was wearing earplugs. They try to chop off Ringo's hand while most of the room is in a trance, but George knocks the axe (!!!) they were using out of their hands and into a mirror. The cult flees and everyone wakes up to see the axe left behind. The scene ends with John removing the axe and asking Lady Macbeth "[[ShoutOut Is this a chopper]] [[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} that you see before you?]]". This scene would have explained why Ringo withdrew his hand so quickly the next time they tried to cut it off, as well as how the boys knew to plug their ears in the Scotland Yard scene.
20	** One scene cut from the movie had Music/GeorgeHarrison, disguised as Music/RingoStarr, sitting in a treehouse.
21	** A scene cut from the film was to have been within the attempts to kill Ringo, (within the five attempts), it involved Ringo making a phone call in a phone box, and a botched sacrifice attempt made within the phone box.
22	* FakeNationality: All the cultists from 'the East' are played by English actors. This is {{Lampshaded}} when the Beatles visit the Indian Restaurant "seeking enlightenment as to rings" from someone from "the mystic East" but quickly learn that everyone working there is English.
23	--> '''Ringo:''' He's from the ''West''!
24	--> '''Restaurant Host:''' No, the East... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepney Stepney.]]
25	* {{Leitmotif}}: "She's a Woman" and "You Can't Do That" for the cult and the scientists, respectively.
26	* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition: The film was released in a special collectors' edition (costing £50 as opposed to £15 for the standard edition) which came in an A4 (210mm297mm)50mm box; for that extra £35 one got reproductions of the lobby cards, publicity posters, and shooting script, plus a "Making Of" book.
27	* RealitySubtext: Paul says to Ringo "Well, you didn't miss your tonsils, did you?", referencing the fact that Ringo had a tonsillectomy earlier that year.
28	* ThrowItIn: Part of the "Ticket to Ride" sequence, which the directors considered beautiful, was marred by the presence of telegraph poles in the background. Attempts at removing them failed...and then someone had the idea of superimposing musical notes over the wires in time with "I think I'm going to be sad..."
29	* UncreditedRole:
30	** Creator/JohnLouisMansi and Creator/RonnieBrody both as a priest and a thug.
31	** Creator/DandyNichols as a neighbour.
32	** Creator/ImogenHassall as a restaurant patron.
33	** Creator/BobGrant as an extra.
34	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
35	** The initial concept for the film pitched by Creator/RichardLester was more of a BlackComedy, in which a suicidal Ringo meets a stranger at a bar who offers to murder him for a price, but the next morning Ringo decides to call it off, but he'd gotten so drunk that he can't remember exactly who he'd made the deal with. It was dropped partly because the it ran counter to the Beatles' wholesome image, and partly because they learned that another film was being made with a similar plot (a sequel to ''Film/ThatManFromRio'' that never got finished).
36	** According to still photos included in the "making of" documentary on the new Special Edition DVD, one of the features in Ringo's apartment space that were not used in the movie was a little dining room table and chairs in the vending machine wall that would pop out in the same manner as Paul's organ.
37	** Creator/PeterSellers turned down a role, not wanting to play second fiddle to the Beatles.
38	* WorkingTitle: ''Eight Arms to Hold You'' was the title of initial screenplay. When Creator/CapitolRecords released "Ticket to Ride" as a single in America a few months in advance of the film, they listed this as the title. ''Help'' was Richard Lester's preferred title, but it already been copyrighted. [[WritingAroundTrademarks However, they ended up being able to use the name]] "Help" anyway by adding an exclamation mark.
39	* YouLookFamiliar: Victor Spinetti and Creator/JohnBluthal also appeared in ''Film/AHardDaysNight''.
40
41	!!The album
42	* BadExportForYou: Capitol Records' practice of reordering and cutting tracks for the US releases hit this album particularly hard. It contains just the seven songs from Side 1 of the UK release, interspersed with orchestral selections from the movie soundtrack (by composer Ken Thorne, not any of the Beatles) to fill out the album. Even several of these songs were clumsily "folded down" from stereo into mono, instead of the true mono mixes in the UK record. The remaining tracks from Side 2 later trickled out on the US releases of ''Beatles VI'', ''Music/RubberSoul'' (US), and ''Yesterday And Today''. Suffice to say, the first chance the Beatles had to renegotiate their contract with Capitol, they forbade any more cuts.
43	* BlackSheepHit:
44	** The Beatles declined to release "Yesterday" as a single in Great Britain for fear it would become one of these. (Let's just say that their producer proposed that it be a Music/PaulMcCartney solo work. The world was not ready.) It became the most covered of their songs.
45	** "Help!" originally written as a slow, bleak ballad similar to "Yesterday," was retooled into a rock song for similar reasons too.
46	* BuryYourArt: The original stereo mix has only scarcely been reissued since the '80s, owed to producer George Martin's dissatisfaction with it. Instead, most reissues use the new stereo remix he created for the band's first catalog-wide CD releases in 1987.
47	* CreatorBacklash:
48	** Music/JohnLennon wasn't fond of the way "Help!" turned out, as its lyrics were meant to be serious. He wanted it to be a piano ballad. He also said he hated "It's Only Love".
49	** "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much" are the only Music/GeorgeHarrison-composed Beatles songs that don't have their lyrics reprinted in the song-by-song commentary section of his memoir ''I Me Mine'', suggesting that he considered them a point of regret.
50	* CreatorBreakdown: Music/JohnLennon stated in interviews that the lyrics of "Help!" were more literal than most people assumed, as well as the seemingly over-the-top suicidal lyrics of "Yer Blues" (he explained that he made them over-the-top so he could dismiss it as a parody in case anybody worried about him being very depressed). This probably applies to lots of his other songs as well.
51	* CutSong:
52	** Lennon and [=McCartney=] wrote "If You've Got Trouble" for Music/RingoStarr to sing, but the song was rejected and Starr sang "Act Naturally" (which is not in the film but is about being in the movies) instead.
53	** Lennon said "Yes It Is" was "me trying a rewrite of 'This Boy', but it didn't work"; it was released as the B-side of "Ticket to Ride" and was also on ''Beatles VI''.
54	* NominalCoauthor: Music/JohnLennon and Music/PaulMcCartney agreed that they'd be credited as equal co-authors for all Beatles songs that they wrote, so Lennon is (and his estate gets royalties for his being) co-author of "Yesterday" even though [=McCartney=] wrote it all by himself.
55	* ThrowItIn: "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" contains a line that is sung as "If she's gone, I can't go on, feeling two foot small". Music/JohnLennon flubbed the line, which was originally "two foot tall", but he felt that the new line worked better and kept it.
56	* ReferencedBy: In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase "The Chase"]], the TARDIS crew watch the band play "Ticket to Ride" on ''Series/TopOfThePops'' (which is the only surviving footage of any of their appearances). Vicki mentions their memorial theatre in Liverpool and while she's a fan, she had no idea they played classical music. Bonus points -- her actress Creator/MaureenOBrien is from Liverpool.
57	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: As mentioned above, George Martin wanted "Yesterday" to be released as a Music/PaulMcCartney solo song, since none of the other Beatles participated, but Brian Epstein said no.

Context Trivia / Help