Useless Trivia

A short compendium of useless information that you may or may not know! It’s hoped that this section will be updated and grow on a monthly basis!

With the exception of Let It Be, all of the Beatles Movies contain strong elements of travel; Obviously, Hard Day’s Night deals with the journey from Liverpool to London, Help! features journey’s across Europe and the Bahamas, while both Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine have travelogue narratives.

The film producer Denis O’Dell, head of Apple films, was assistant director of the Christmas evergreen, Scrooge (1951), with Alastair Sim in the title role.

Conspiracy theorists of the ‘Paul is Dead’ persuasion have found much stimulating material in the Magical Mystery film and record packaging. For example, Paul is the only Beatle wearing a black carnation in the ‘Your Mother Should Know’ segment of the film, while in the military sequence with Victor Spinetti, he sits at a desk with a sign that reads ‘I Was.’ According to Gary Patterson’s book, The Great Beatle Death Clues, this is further accentuated by the fisheye lens shot that appears in the Magical Mystery Tour booklet. Turned to a certain angle, the ladies beret becomes the eye of a skull! Finally, Paul appears barefoot (a death symbol) in the central ‘Walrus’ image of the record’s booklet, while Ringo’s bass drum reads ‘Love the 3 Beatles.’ Bizarrely however, the most potentially disturbing image is the photo of John selling tickets for the Mystery Tour: He stands next to a sign which reads ‘The Best way to go is by M. & D. Company,’ the same initials as his murderer, Mark David Chapman. All nonsense of course, but a bit creepy all the same!

And the ‘clues’ don’t stop there. The cover of the original Let It Be LP is predominantly black and features Paul (the only Beatle directly addressing the camera) against a blood red background!

The references to Wilfred Brambell being a ‘clean’ old man relate to his role in Steptoe and Son, a popular British sitcom which featured Brambell as a somewhat less than clean rag and bone man, Albert Steptoe!

The final edit of Help! excluded scenes which featured popular actress Wendy Richard (then a virtual unknown) and Frankie Howerd, a popular British comedian and comic actor. Howerd later appeared (as Mean Mr Mustard) in the Bee Gees seventies disaster, Sergeant Pepper.

John Bluthal, who has small roles in both A Hard Day’s Night and Help! was later to star in one of Britain’s most successful sitcoms, The Vicar of Dibley, as village bore, Frank Pickle.

Although it is widely known that Help! is partly a parody of the Bond series, which the Beatles greatly admired, the feeling was not mutual. In Goldfinger (1964) Bond makes a negative quip about the group, intimating that the only way to listen to the group is with ear muffs! Ironic then, that Bond actor Sean Connery should contribute to George Martin’s version of In My Life over three decades later, and that the Bond series was also distributed by UA, the Beatles distributor for Help!

Jean Luc Godard, the famous French auteur who directed the Stones in One Plus One (1969) was almost contracted to make a documentary film with the Beatles of the same name. The project fell through because George didn’t want to do it. Paramount would have distributed the film had it have gone ahead.

John makes a brief cameo appearance in the back of a taxi (looking very stoned) with Bob Dylan in his re-edited version of Don’t Look Back (1966), Eat the Document.

As well as appearing in three of the Beatles’ films, actor Victor Spinetti became particularly close friends with John, collaborating with him on the stage version of In His Own Write (1968), and travelling with him to Morocco on an impulsive holiday that same year.

One of the original shooting ideas for the Let it Be finale rooftop concert was that some of the footage should be shot from helicopters above the Apple building. The idea was too potentially hazardous and never happened.

Back in 1968, the Beatles attempted to get the rights to make The Lord of the Rings. The original idea, initially suggested by Apple film chief Denis O’Dell, had to scrapped because of difficulties obtaining rights and the fact that it proved impossible to snare either of their first choice directors. David Lean, who was approached was busy on what became Ryan’s Daughter, and Stanley Kubrick, the other main choice, maintained that the film was ‘unmakeable.’ To be fair to Kubrick, it probably was in 1968.

The Nowhere Man, or Jeremy Hilary Boob Phd, in Yellow Submarine, is voiced by British comedy legend, Dick Emery.

The cross channel swimmer that appears from a hole in the ice in Help! is none other than Beatles personal assistant, Mal Evans! Mal also makes a brief appearance in Let It Be, preparing the equipment for the band’s rehearsals at Twickenham. Moreover, the characters of Norm and Shake in A Hard Day’s night are essentially modelled on Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans, from observations made by the films’ scriptwriter, Alun Owen, when he travelled to Ireland with the group to observe them at close quarters.

Yellow Submarine is one of the first full length feature films to resonate in different ways with both adults and children. In this sense, it can be seen as a kind of precursor to animated series and films such as The Simpsons and the Shrek productions.