Calling Help! a musical movie is… generous.  It’s more of a wacky hybrid James Bond and Wile E. Coyote-esque romp, maybe even taking a page from Rocky and Bullwinkle with their questionable racial depiction of Indians… oof.  It’s boring at times, hilarious in its surrealism in others, and at the very least, not stomach churning since the filming is *much* better.

Unlike A Hard Day’s Night, there is a semblance of a plot here.  Ringo is sent a ring, of all things, from a woman who is supposed to wear it while she is sacrificed by her cult-like religion.  Because the ring is not present in the ceremony, the leader of the cult sieges an assault on Ringo (and The Beatles, by extension) to get the ring back so they can resume killing this lady.

The cult goes about it covertly at the start, trying to steal it off Ringo’s hand while he slept, while he was posting a letter, and while he was drying his hands in the bathroom.  None of these methods work particularly well.

They finally give the game away when they saw a hole through the floor while Ringo is playing his drums, and a hot pursuit takes place.  The Beatles, in their infinite wisdom, visit an Indian restaurant to gather information about this cult, and Ringo is informed if he does not return the ring, they are going to sacrifice him instead.  He’s understandably not pleased when he discovers the ring is too small to remove from his hand. 

The Beatles’ next stop is to a jeweler, who cannot remove the ring, and a couple of scientists, who also cannot budge it.  Instead, the scientists are fascinated by its composition, and attempt to murder Ringo with a laser in order to obtain the ring and study it.  The boys bolt and are intercepted by a cult member, who is determined to help them without physically removing Ringo’s digits.  She possesses a medicine that will shrink Ringo’s finger enough to be able to remove the ring, but in a comedy of errors, Paul is injected by mistake and decreases to the size of an action figure.  He finds a nice CVS receipt to wear, and tries to avoid the stomping feet of the scientists who have broken into the Beatles’ home to threaten Ringo at gunpoint.  John realizes there’s no bullets in the gun, so the scientists leave, and the Beatles flee to the Alps for… unknown reasons.

Out of curiosity, I tried to find out how this movie was chosen for The Beatles, and discovered they signed onto the movie not really knowing what the story was about, and didn’t really understand what was going on during filming.  Apparently, they were also too blazed by the afternoons to shoot anything, so instead of trying to wrangle something out of four stoned 20-somethings, the director would just wrap them.  It feels appropriate to mention this during the snow montage, cause it’s realllllll apparent this was their state of mine when you watch it.

I’d like to regale the rest of the plot to you, but Help! legitimately is 90 minutes of The Beatles running from an army of cultists and two overzealous researchers interspersed with 2-3 minute music video breaks to show them attempting to record a new album.

They traverse the globe trying to shake these guys, but are barely one step ahead of them at every moment.  Some of my favorite gags include:

• The man in the snowman costume just hanging out on a hill waiting to pounce on Ringo, only to launch himself off a ski ramp and medal in a ski jumping competition
• The sound technician saving an expensive microphone while sprinting away from a full on military siege with tanks and explosives
• Ringo falling through the floor of a pub only to be hunted by a Berlin tiger that escaped from the zoo that can only be calmed down by hearing “Ode to Joy”.

The conclusion of the movie is in the Bahamas (I wonder why…).  Ringo is apprehended by the scientists, they decide to cut off his finger, and would have, had sand not clogged their machine.  Too bad Anakin wasn’t around because he would have warned them that sand gets everywhere.

The cultist lady takes enough time away from locking little girls in attics to help him escape, another battle ensues on the beach, the ring finally falls off Ringo’s finger, and the movie ends with a rendition of The Barber of Seville (as if it didn’t remind me enough of a Bugs Bunny cartoon).

There’s no real personality-driven reason The Beatles were chosen to be in this – it literally could have been anybody, musician or not.  This movie gives off a strong “when a celebrity guest-stars on an episode of Scooby-Doo” vibe, where there’s a lot of things going on around them, and they contribute nothing other than their physical presence.  Well, other than music, which I did enjoy more in this movie than the previous one (I have no idea why).  The songs themselves don’t relate to the plot in the slightest, however, so if you’re not a fan of The Beatles, they’re probably not going to do much for you.

Overall, I did find this movie much more enjoyable than A Hard Day’s Night, probably because it’s so fucking ridiculous.  It did cement Ringo as my favorite Beatle by a mile, as he plays a wholesome, bewildered cinnamon bun crushed under the weight of his circumstances pretty well.  He’s 80-years-old now and his twitter is just declarations of peace and love, and I think we need that wholesome goodness in our lives.

Next is finally Head, thank god.  I just want to get back to watching people earnestly sing their emotions again.