The Beatles were a band that devoted a surprising amount of time to media other than music.
They appeared on radio and TV too many times to count. They started a business conglomerate that involved, among other enterprises, a music label, a clothing store, and a publishing house. John wrote two books, and Paul invested in a book store.1 Ringo designed furniture (opening the design firm RoR in 1968). George introduced his bandmates, and much of the Western world, to Eastern religion.
And they acted in and wrote music for movies, both as a band and later as ex-Beatles.
Seven movies and seven soundtracks
The Beatles filmed movies in 1964 (A Hard Day’s Night), 1965 (Help!), 1967 (Magical Mystery Tour), a cameo in 1968 (Yellow Submarine), and 1969 (Let It Be). John acted in How I Won the War in 1966, and Ringo made The Magic Christian in 1969, for which Paul wrote the hit song Come and Get It.
Five of The Beatles’ thirteen albums were movie soundtracks, though four of those also contained songs that didn’t appear in the corresponding film.2 In between Beatles’ projects, both Paul (The Family Way, 1967) and George (Wonderwall Music, 1968) wrote movie soundtracks.3
Why?
I understand why the fine people at United Artists wanted to make Beatles movies. But why did The Beatles themselves devote so much time in their too-brief time together to making movies and music for movies? I’m not familiar with any Beatles biographer or other author who addresses that question.
I’m not so naive to overlook the financial rewards. But after Help!, The Beatles decided not to make a movie in 1966, so they must have decided amongst themselves that the money was no longer sufficient incentive. And yet they voluntarily made Magical Mystery Tour in 1967.
Some of their idols–Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry–made movies. And even some artists whom they held in somewhat lower esteem4 were regulars on the silver screen. So maybe they thought that the privilege of making movies was a reward for achieving a certain level of musical success?
John told the story of watching an Elvis movie at a Liverpool theater5 and thinking, “Now that’s a good job.” I don’t want to read too much into that anecdote, but it’s possible that in the late ’50s and into the ’60s, they believed that making movies was either or both a perk and/or a requirement of being a rock ‘n’ roll star.
Post-breakup
Ringo acted in many films after The Beatles disbanded. George founded HandMade Films (in 1978), which produced Monty Python’s Life of Brian, The Long Good Friday, Time Bandits, and Mona Lisa, but also Shanghai Surprise.
Paul reportedly wrote and starred in a movie in 1984, but no one saw it, and its title is lost to history, which is just as well, because Paul never mentions it anyway. Only John refrained from appearing in theatrical movies, as opposed to filmed concerts, after 1970.
I wonder, as they were children of the ’40s and teenagers of the ’50s, whether they regarded movies as the summit of the entertainment-industry mountain. Seven movies and seven soundtracks in the basically seven years that they recorded together represent a big chunk of time, time that they might have spent on other endeavors.
What’s your take on why The Beatles devoted so much effort to movies? Email me at beatletrack@gmail.com.
- London’s Indica Gallery. ↩︎
- I think I’m right about this, but I’m willing to be corrected: Yellow Submarine contains only music from the movie, but the Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, and Let It Be albums all have songs that didn’t appear in the movies. The Magical Mystery Tour EP, of course, did limit itself to movie music. ↩︎
- Paul had a lot of help from George Martin. ↩︎
- Ahem, Cliff Richard. ↩︎
- Or theatre. ↩︎
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