So, how well have the Beatles movies aged?

I’ve never actually seen any of them – besides Yellow Submarine, of course. Are they worth perusing? I mean, we don’t even really make that kind of movie anymore. Or do we? I haven’t really thought about this particular genre before today, which is kind of odd when you think about it.

12 thoughts on “So, how well have the Beatles movies aged?”

  1. A Hard Day’s Night,if memory serves, was pretty good. Can’t tell you about the others though.

  3. A Hard Day’s Night is very good (I suppose moreso if you enjoy the music, but I would hope that goes without saying).

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    Help! I suppose is amusing if you manage to set your expectations low enough. If nothing else, it’s a good example of how marijuana can dilute an other wise extraordinary group of talents.

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    I haven’t seen Magical Mystery Tour or Let it Be, so cannot comment on those beyond stuff you should already know.

    1. Help! is quite amusing, it has a passable semblance of a plot, and it co-stars the wonderful Leo McKern. And it has the Hand Dryer Scene.

    2. Magical Mystery Tour is drek, IIRC. Let It Be has some excellent music performances, but at this stage of their career, the rot had sat in very badly, what with Paul viewing the other three Beatles as his sidemen, and John petulantly forcing Yoko upon the rest of the band, likely as a passive-aggressive response. There’s several clips from the movie still online at YouTube and else on the ‘Net if you want to get a feel for it.

  4. My slowly failing brain dredged up The Magic Christian as a “Beatles movie” but of course it is a “Peter Sellers movie” with a Beatle co-starring. Really fine movie though, in a 60s sort of way.

    Huh… it has Christopher Lee in it. I did not remember that.

    1. The Magic Christian is one of those movies I discovered a little while back. As you mentioned, Ringo Starr is in it, and Paul McCartney wrote the theme music; it also has John Cleese and Graham Chapman in separate scenes before they were together in Monty Python.
      Oh, and it has Raquel Welch as the Mistress Of The Whip. (-:

  5. Spice Girls effectively remade A Hard Days Night in the late ’90s, so we can’t say it never happens any more.
    (Sorry, don’t remember the title.)

  6. Spice world. A surprisingly fun movie. The music is catchy, the story silly and Roger Moore is bizarre as their manager.

  7. A Hard Day’s Night is a true classic however. The recent Criterion Blu-Ray disc has an excellent transfer and lots of insightful bonus material. We take it for granted now, but look at what that film spawned: Let It Be >> Help >> The Monkees TV series >> MTV.

    OK, but don’t hold all that against it — it’s still a wonderfully watchable movie and by far the best cinematic effort featuring the Beatles.

    1. “…but don’t hold all that against it…”

      I don’t. As a kid re-runs of The Monkees were always fun to watch; and hitting high school in the early ’80’s with MTV – there was a lot of music that was not getting played on the Detroit area radio stations.

      A taste.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqCqxhxLtc

  8. -Let It Be: Did they ever even release that? Just briefly.
    -Magical Mystery Tour: Derp.
    -Help!: A perfectly charming look at the Beatles the way they wanted people to see them. (The Monkees show is a total ripoff of the concept.)
    -A Hard Day’s Night: A perfectly charming look at the Beatles the way they wanted people to see them. Also a decent move in itself.

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