Which was your favorite Beatles movie?

**Buried Alien** · 06-19-2008, 11:40 PM

The Beatles are acclaimed as great pop songwriters, performers, and recording artists, but during the 1960s, they also made a series of movies that were generally well-received. Which of the five Beatles movies made during the 1960s do you consider your favorite cinematic work of theirs?

1. A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964): A documentary-like (although entirely fictional) look at the Beatles' daily lives during the Beatlemania era.

2. HELP! (1965): A campy mid-1960s comedy that set the tone for such TV series as THE MONKEES, BATMAN, and GET SMART.

3. MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (1967): A crazy, somewhat disjointed psychedelic trip. Short on plot, but big on 1960s drug-fueled wackiness.

4. YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968): An animated psychedelic fantasy, with an epochal animation style.

5. LET IT BE (1970): Documentary of the bitter break-up of the band, as their musical development reached maturity.

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**stealthwise** · 06-19-2008, 11:43 PM

I didn't see LET IT BE, but I hated what I saw of the middle three. I'm interested in HARD DAY'S NIGHT, but the other three are too trippy/campy/goofy for me.

**Pauly T** · 06-20-2008, 01:23 AM

Is this really a question? I mean, it's obviously A Hard Day's Night, right? Has there ever been a debate?

Sure, Let It Be is a interesting documentary with a unique insight to the band at the end, especially with George's "I'll play whatever you want me to play... or not play at all.", but only HDN captures the actual essence of The Beatles in all their glory on film.

**Ilash** · 06-20-2008, 05:54 AM

I actually haven't seen Let It Be or Magical Mystery Tour but it's tough deciding about the other three. Help is obviously the weakest but it is the film that got me into the Beatles and by extension music so it does have a special place in my heart. Yellow Submarine is awesome, if completely insane but I am somewhat tempted to disqualify it because it isn't really a Beatles movie. So, A Hard Day's Night it is then.

**Chiasm** · 06-20-2008, 10:12 AM

Across the Universe

**Buried Alien** · 06-21-2008, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by Ilash

I actually haven't seen Let It Be or Magical Mystery Tour but it's tough deciding about the other three. Help is obviously the weakest but it is the film that got me into the Beatles and by extension music so it does have a special place in my heart. Yellow Submarine is awesome, if completely insane but I am somewhat tempted to disqualify it because it isn't really a Beatles movie. So, A Hard Day's Night it is then.

I watched LET IT BE on Youtube not long ago. It isn't as entirely oppressively depressing as I expected it to be. There were tense moments, to be sure, but there were also good moments when the band was really cooking and played well. John and George didn't scowl through the entire movie.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR was a real trip...in every sense of the word. The musical segments for "I Am The Walrus" and "Your Mother Should Know" were highlights, but the rest of the film was something of a bus wreck. The Beatles were great pop musicians, but as filmmakers, they clearly didn't know what the hell they were doing.

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**Paradox** · 06-21-2008, 12:23 AM

Pauly T thinks it's obvious:

Is this really a question?

Since the question is "favorite" and not "best", yes, very much a question. I LIKE Yellow Submarine best, but I don't think it's their best film.

**Tobias March** · 06-21-2008, 02:17 AM

"....he's very clean."

**Kirayoshi** · 06-21-2008, 09:35 AM

Gotta go with Yellow Submarine, mainly due to the imagination of imagery and sheer psychedelic visuals. Plus the songs are cool too, a great mix of earlier period songs(Elanor Rigby, Nowhere Man) and later stuff(All You Need is Love, Hey Bulldog), plus lots of fast-flying in-jokes(like during the Sea of Holes sequence where John comments, "This reminds me of Blackburn Lanceshire.") A Hard Day's Night is a very close second, the others left way in the dust.

At least you didn't mention that Sgt. Pepper movie with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees(although I do have a soft spot for Earth Wind and Fire's cover of "Got to Get You Into My Life" and Aerosmith's "Come Together").

**ultramandingo** · 06-21-2008, 09:59 AM

..........what no Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) -?!? ... George Burns, the BGs , Donald Pleasence, Steve Martin, Earth Wind & Fire and Alice Cooper -, all it needed was the muppets - i actually saw it in a theater