Help!

Absent the happy glow of Beatlemania, Help! has not aged well.

Help! premiered sixty years ago this summer, an anniversary that has allowed the internet to resurface all that stuff about it being a James Bond spoof (aside from some incidental music that comes close to the 007 theme, it’s not) or that the band were the new Marx Brothers (no, but taking that premise further, John = Groucho, George = Chico, Ringo = Harpo, leaving poor Paul, an often awkward actor, as Zeppo).

The breathless enthusiasm and charm – especially the charm – that made A Hard Day’s Night such fun has, just one year later, vanished in the haze, leaving the band seemingly disinterested in their own movie, vacantly working their way through a live-action Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Maybe the most memorable scene in Help! is the Beatles’ groovy pop art pad, four outside entrances that lead into one room, the perfect metaphor for this brotherhood – four individuals so close that at one point they investigated buying an island off Greece and building four separate compounds on it for their family and friends.

But one scene, one word really, undermines that groovy feeling. A cage falls from a ceiling to trap Ringo. George says, “I’m off,” and runs out the door. Someone (it sounds like Paul) says, “Typical.” Kind of a cutting comment and typical of what exactly? Was George always running off in real life whenever a religious cult trapped Ringo? Stupid scriptwriting that betrays the band’s entire ethos.

I’m guessing the band was too stoned or tired to fix it. Or that they even noticed.

Filling the gaps and moving things along is a veteran supporting cast: Leo McKern before he became a household name (at least in the homes that favor PBS), Eleanor Bron, and Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear as mad scientists, forerunners of Dr. Forrester and Frank on Mystery Science Theatre.

The musical sequences hold Help! together. The threatening outdoor weather during I Need You and The Night Before. The dramatic backlighting on You’re Going to Lose That Girl, Ringo’s cigarette smoke giving it a noirish atmosphere. The band looking miserable “romping” in the snow during Ticket to Ride (a sequence that could have served as a pitch for entire Monkees TV series). An added plus is seeing them perform in cool mod clothes and not their usual suits.

Two other scenes have taken on a kind of eeriness over the years. The fight in the Beatles’ home with the cult members and mad scientists feels a little disturbing today given all the knife flashing and gun wielding, then remembering what lies ahead for George and John.

Second, when the band disguise themselves with fake beards and glasses, we get a glimpse into the near future, George looking disturbingly as he would on the Sgt. Pepper album and John circa his Abbey Road Christ-with-Coke Bottle glasses look.

With the release of the Help! soundtrack, Rubber Soul and Yesterday, 1965 marked the point where the Beatles’ uncanny musical maturation spun into orbit. Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep a similar pace when it came to video. Which is all right. That would be asking a lot of any four performers.