4 Ringo Starr Movies That Prove His Talent as an Actor
Ringo Starr is known, first and foremost, as a drummer, but he appeared in multiple movies over the course of his career. All of The Beatles picked up some acting experience, but Starr took steps to build a career as an actor. Not all of his movies performed well – even the drummer’s biggest fans should avoid a few of them — but some are worth a watch. Here are four of Starr’s movies worth putting on your to-watch list.
‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is 1 of the movies Starr filmed with The Beatles
Starr’s first movie is also one of his best. In 1964, The Beatles released A Hard Day’s Night, a musical comedy film in which the band played themselves. The film gave Starr a good deal of screen time — he chaperones Paul McCartney’s grandfather and gets arrested.
While director Richard Lester believed George Harrison was the best actor in the film, he also said that Starr had the showiest part in the movie. He has a similarly prominent role in the second Beatles film, Help!, but A Hard Day’s Night is the better movie.
‘200 Motels’ sees Ringo Starr playing another musician
The 1971 film 200 Motels is a surrealist musical written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer. The film follows the real band, The Mothers of Invention, on tour. Starr’s character name is Larry the Dwarf, but he is playing Zappa. He dressed like the other musician right down to the soul patch.
Starr said that the process of making the movie was difficult because Zappa had ideas about the music, not the script.
“So he came and laid out a huge music score,” Starr said, per the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr. “I can’t read music. There was no script, just the music score. So I said, ‘Sure! I’ve got to do it now!'”
Like many of Starr’s films, the movie received mixed reviews.
‘That’ll Be the Day’ is seen as Ringo Starr’s best movie performance
One of Starr’s best acting performances was, without a doubt, in the 1973 film That’ll Be the Day. In it, he played Mike, one of the leads. He was initially supposed to have a small role in the film, but he impressed screenwriter Ray Connolly so much that they offered him a bigger part.
“I knew Ringo could act, but I wasn’t sure how well he could act because it wasn’t sort of the zany, madcap films that The Beatles had made,” his co-star, David Essex, said. “But pretty soon I saw that he was a natural and truthful actor. We had almost too much fun; the problem we both had was to stop laughing. It was a really happy time.”
Starr’s performance was so strong that Connolly wrote an extra scene for him.
“Over the weekend I wrote an extra scene in the pool hall, where Ringo and David Essex [as Mike and Jim] are playing pool and talking about Mike’s background,” Connolly said. “And that was an afterthought because he had been so good. We had all been surprised. We didn’t think he was going to be so good.”
‘Lisztomania’ divided audiences, but Starr got good reviews
One of Starr’s more divisive films was 1975’s Lisztomania. The film is an over-the-top biopic starring The Who’s Roger Daltrey as 19th-century composer Franz Liszt. The film is surreal and bizarre and, as Roger Ebert noted in his three-star review, “most people will probably despise it.”
For fans of The Beatles, though, the film is worth watching. Starr was praised for his work, even by viewers who detested the movie. At the very least, his performance tugs the rest of the film back down to Earth.
“By way of illustration: Ringo Starr’s cameo as the Pope becomes an island of relative sanity,” Ebert wrote.
