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While The Beatles were best known for their music, the fab four appeared in a few movies, including Help!. After the script and the music were written, filming began exactly 58 years ago today, down in the Bahamas. 

‘Help!’ is the second film starring The Beatles

Paul McCartney and John Lennon of The Beatles film Help! in the Bahamas
Paul McCartney and John Lennon | William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The Beatles were involved in a few films during the 1960s, including A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), and Yellow Submarine (1968). Following the commercial success of A Hard Day’s Night, production quickly started on their second film, Help!.  

Help! is a musical comedy-adventure film directed by Richard Lester, featuring the fab four running around the world from a dangerous cult. The cult wants to perform a human sacrifice but requires a ring that was sent to Ringo Starr. So, The Beatles travel around the world trying to flee the cult, and all of this is set to a soundtrack of Beatles hits. 

Filming on ‘Help!’ began on Feb. 23, 1965, in The Bahamas

The Beatles started production on Help! on Feb. 23, 1965. Filming began in the Bahamas, but the cast and crew traveled to many other locations to film, including London, Austria, Salisbury Plain, and New Providence Island. In his book A Magical Mystery Tour, Tony Bramwell, assistant to the Beatles manager Brian Epstein, said Lester chose the Bahamas for tax purposes. 

While the final product turned out adequately, The Beatles have openly shared the displeasure they felt while filming Help!. Part of it was due to their exhaustion of recording, songwriting, and touring while also making this movie. In the book Lennon Remembers, John Lennon shared his honest opinion with Rolling Stone’s Jann S. Wenner, saying it was a “f***in’ humiliation.”

“And [that was] the most humiliating experiences for me,” Lennon shared. “Like sitting with the governor of the Bahamas because we were making Help! and being insulted by these f***in’ jumped-up middle-class b*****s and bastards who would be commenting on our work and our manners. And I was always drunk, like the typical-whatever it is-insulting them. I couldn’t take it. It hurt me so, I would go insane, swearing at them and whatever.”

“It was a f***in’ humiliation,” he continued. “One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what The Beatles were, and that’s what I resent. I did it, but I didn’t know. I didn’t foresee that, it just happened bit by bit till this complete craziness is surrounding you.”

The movie still managed to be a hit at the box office

While Lennon and the other Beatles didn’t enjoy the experience of making Help!, audiences still found much to enjoy in its final product. While the initial critical reception was mixed, it has turned into a cult classic over the years. The film currently holds an 89% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

The film also fared well at the box office, bringing in $12.1 million on a $1.5 million budget. However, the experience of making Help! made The Beatles hesitant about a third movie, and it would be their last full-length scripted theatrical film. 

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