Hello, Beatle fans. On this episode of Compeatly Beatles, Ian and Dave take a look at all the Beatles films: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be. As usual, there is lots of background and history, but there is lots of discussion about the films. Which is their favourite? And which is their least favourite? As usual, they do not agree, but you’ll have to listen to find out the answer!
Oh, bee tee dubs, Clara Bow was the “It” girl, not Mary Pickford, who was “American’s Sweetheart” or Theda Bara, the first “vamp”.
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loved and giggled my way through all the jolly bickering over the movies. Favourite line ‘The music means that little to you!”
Surprised though that you didnt mention that Michael Lindsay-Hogg is Orson Welles’ son…
thanks, guys, and missing you already..
jeremy
Another excellent, informative and very funny podcast. I can honestly say I am more downcast about the end of this entertaining series than when England’s useless soccer players crashed out of the World Cup.
I have a question for the Q&A session: what makes Paul chuckle in the middle of the second verse of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer?
Make it up if you don’t know
Truly, I love and hate your series on The Beatles. David is brilliantly informed and due to the depth of his research, has shed new light on The Beatles legacy. Ian on the other hand, his ramblings are both cringeworthy and alarmingly unfunny. I can only listen 20 minutes at a time because Ian’s constant interjections do my head in. I’m glad you guys put this entertaining series together – I’m also kinda glad it’s over.
Well you know what they say, if you can’t say something nice… that’s what internet message boards are for.
This podcast wouldn’t be what it is without both Dave and Ian. I find their dynamic to be hugely entertaining, and I always enjoy hearing what Ian has to add. It is sad that the series is ending soon, but I am grateful for the hours of enlightening entertainment that have gotten me through many a long commute over the past few months. I look forward to revisiting each episode of Compleatly Beatles and checking out Sneaky Dragon.
On your final Podcast can you list some of your favorite Beatle books?
Having been an in-studio guest on a number of Ian and Dave’s podcasts, I’m going to betray the guys’ confidence and reveal a previously-unknown fact about Sneaky Dragon/Compleatly Beatles: Ian has an identical twin (Liam) who sits silently during every one of their podcasts. His function is to never interject anything, and he never has. He’s a nice guy, but he’s totally fucking useless.
I was perusing the Georgia Straight, to make my pick for Best Podcast, when I noticed that until Thursday night A Hard Days Night is playing at the Cinematique in Vancouver. Apparently its the 50th anniversary. That’s pretty cool that you did the Beatles Movies show close to that anniversary.
Yes, it was all very carefully planned on David’s part.
(cough)
Um…
Congratulations guys. You’re almost at the finish line. There was a moment during the Run For Your Life tussle in the Rubber Soul episode where I was concerned the entire series would end abruptly, possibly with bruises and broken furniture. But you persevered. (For the record, Ian, David was right. You’re welcome).
Two things.
1) Speaking of Run For Your Life, here’s a little trivia. Some time back I read an interview with Louis Shelton, the session guitarist on The Monkee’s Last Train to Clarksville. He said when they were working the tune up in the studio the producers wanted a Beatles-esque guitar hook to open the song. Shelton suggested the now classic Last Train … riff, which he said he based – off the top of his head – on Harrison’s hook for Run For Your Life. Rubber Soul had just come out a few months earlier, so the timing is right. The pedigree is pretty obvious when you compare the rhythmic and melodic shapes between the two hooks.
I can’t find that particular interview with Shelton anymore, but here’s a link to a newspaper article that references the link to The Beatles. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/master-of-the-riff/story-e6freon6-1111116413798
2) I’m probably too late to submit a suggestion for the Q&A show, but if not, how about addressing the Missing Chord at the end of Her Majesty on Abbey Road. All my life I’ve always heard it with the abrupt finish ending on the bass note. But a month ago I ran across a clip on Youtube which has Paul ending the song with a final strum ala campfire singalong style. WTF? Comments? (Other than the extra chord is SO wrong. The truncation – for whatever reason – is yet another twinkle of The Beatles genius. Yeah, I’m probably biased.)
http://youtu.be/VrAdX4O1m4M?t=15m44s
Thanks again for many hours of entertaining listening. Nice work.
Great stuff. Learned some new background info on the movies which I otherwise would have to wait for Mark Lewisson to complete the rest of his trilogy.
One little misstatement of Ian’s to correct: Yellow Submarine was not the first cartoon to have the live-action counterparts of the characters making an appearance. The Three Stooges (the Curly Joe DiRita version) did live action wrap-arounds for the Stooges cartoon series about three years earlier. And not even sure THEY were the first. So there.
By the way, really disappointed that two Canadians could talk about the move Help without once bringing up curling. I only started listening for the Beatles content, but if you guys can tell me where in your vast archives of Sneaky Dragon back episodes you discourse on curling I will gladly become a listener for life.
Thanks! Um…unfortunately there is no index of Sneaky Dragon episode topics, but I think if you go back and look for an episode with the title card of Sneaky D incorporated into the Olympic rings we do talk a little bit about curling on that show.
We don’t say too much about though because it’s as hard to get Ian to talk about sports as it is to get me to talk about video games! 🙂
Hi Marty, I was referring to The Beatles cartoon not Yellow Submarine which according to this… http://www.beatlescartoon.com/animators.html says that, “It broke new historical ground being the very first weekly series to feature animated versions of real people.”
The New Three Stooges began airing in October 1965, The Beatles in September 1965. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Three_Stooges , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(TV_series)#cite_note-Animators-2 Was there an earlier animated Stooges that I’m missing?
If there’s an earlier example of a weekly animated series with real people let me know.
And we’ll look into having a Sneaky Dragon Bonspiel.
Oops, Ian. Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood. My bad.
As for curling….. really, any sport contested with brooms will do. So if you’ve already discussed quidditch, then you’re good.
Had I been a guest on this episode, I’d have shared the following anecdote: back in the mid-Seventies, my friend Arnie Nermo asked me to skip an all-newbie curling crew for a Douglas College teacher’s program tournament. Everyone in each crew had to have never curled before – in Canada, you can imagine how difficult that was. So we played our first game, and I had no idea what was going on. Arnie would point from the far end to show us where to throw the rocks, but it was hopeless I thought, until I threw the last rock of the game, and Arnie started jumping around happily at the far end because somehow my shot had won the game for us. We played three more games, and lost each game by a progressively-worse score, yet at the end-of-tournament beer bash I was awarded a small trophy for “Most Improved Skip”, which I was statistically definitely the opposite of. Now, why I’d have brought this anecdote up in “The Beatles Movies” would have been because in one of my lousier games, I threw a rock so hopelessly hard and fast that I called out “A thingie! A fiendish thingie!”, which I don’t believe anybody understood as anything but a kind of curling “Fore!”.
David M., I would have understood “a thingie” above and beyond any other term associated with curling. It should be noted that the movie “Help” was likely the first time most people in the world were exposed to this strange, shuffle-board-on-ice type activity. When I first saw the movie in the 1960’s I had no idea what game the Beatles were playing in that scene….and I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for my 300+million fellow Americans as well.
Every time we Canadians think you Americans are beginning to understand curling, we change the rules. Hurry hard, buddy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THfVD5SXu1g The only sports I sort of understand are the ones Peter Puck explained to me.
As someone with a passion not only for the Beatles music, but for the ‘story’, I blindly entered ‘The Beatles’ under search on my podcast app looking for something (I don’t know what) and the ‘Compleatly Beatles’ podcast appeared before me!
For the last few months I have been slowly, but blissfully trawling through each one of them with immense fascination and have been totally blown away by the constant flow of information! Dave you are an extraordinary individual! I could listen to you all day (and I think I probably have!)
I always thought of myself as fairly knowledgeable with anything regarding The Beatles happenings and movements during their brief tenure. I thought I could recognize most of the locations that The Beatles came into contact within the UK.
Anyway, whilst listening to one of your podcasts (I’m not sure which one, probably Sgt.Peppers’) I heard Dave mention that in early 67, Brian Epstein purchased a country retreat in Sussex, England. Being a resident of Sussex, I was intrigued of its whereabouts and nearly fell off of my chair when I discovered that ‘Kingsley Hill’ was in the tiny village of Warbleton, Sussex, less than one mile from my own home! I checked it out on the way home from work that evening.
This splendid house still stands and after researching further, I discovered that it was the venue for the party celebrating the release of Sgt. Pepper. Attendees included John, George, Ringo and their wives (who all traveled there in John’s psychedelic Rolls Royce) Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Derek Taylor, Lionel Bart and Kenny Everett amongst many others.
http://kenwoodlennon.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/kingsley-hill-warbleton-heathfield.html
Thank you Dave and Ian for the total enjoyment I’ve had listening to these podcasts over the past few months! Pure bliss! I will give them a repeat listen, just as I would do with any of The Beatles albums!
By the way, how about the possibility of a postscript podcast on the first solo post Beatle albums? ‘McCartney’, ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’, ‘All Things Must Pass’ & ‘Sentimental Journey’ as you are aware, are all significant seeing as a lot of the tracks had the intention of being used on an album after Abbey Road!
Go on, you know you want to!!!
Clive,
near Warbleton, East Sussex, England.
Thanks Clive, and thank you for the very cool link. Hey Dave, go look at that link!
for the record, the “it” girl was clara bow.
also, not to nit-pick, but the allegory of spain akin to canada because of its affordability is nonsensical. mexico, maybe.