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Magical Mystery Tour

 
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The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour

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The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour
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Plot

After the success of the Sgt. Peppers LP, the Beatles decided to hire a psychedelic bus, take a trip into the English countryside, and film the results, no matter how bizarre or boring. With a motley cast of characters, the group basically tramps about the landscape with occasional music cues to give the film a bit of flow. Though Magical Mystery Tour is an interesting document of the Beatles psychedelic period, its cinematic function is negligible. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Cast

The Beatles; George Claydon - Little George the Photographer; Jessie Robbins - Ringo's Auntie; Victor Spinetti; Maggie Wright - The Lovely Starlet; Neil Innes - Bonzo Dog Band member; Derek Royle - Jolly Jimmy Johnson the Courier; Vivian Stanshall - Lead Singer, Bonzo Dog Band

Credit

George Harrison - Director, Bernard Knowles - Director, John Lennon - Director, Paul McCartney - Director, Ringo Starr - Director, David Brady - Executive Producer, Bob Caisley - Executive Producer, The Beatles - Composer (Music Score), Darren Simpson - Producer, Blake Currall - Research

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Born to Boogie; Head; Psych-Out; The Trip
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Wikipedia: Magical Mystery Tour (film)
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Magical Mystery Tour
Directed by Bernard Knowles
The Beatles
Produced by John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
Gavrik Losey
Dennis O'Dell
Written by John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
Starring John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
Jessie Robins
Vivian Stanshall
Mal Evans
Ivor Cutler
Derek Royle
Victor Spinetti
Music by The Beatles
Cinematography Daniel Lacambre
Distributed by New Line Cinema, Apple Films
Release date(s) 26 December 1967 (UK release)
Running time 55 min.
Language English
Preceded by Help!
Followed by Yellow Submarine

Magical Mystery Tour is an hour-long television film starring The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) that initially aired on BBC1 on 26 December 1967. Upon its initial showing, the film was poorly received by critics and audiences.


Contents

Initial Idea

“If stage shows were to be out, we wanted something to replace them. Television was the obvious answer.”-John Lennon. [1] Most of the band members have quoted that the initial idea was Paul McCartney’s, although he stated, “I’m not sure whose idea Magical Mystery Tour was. It could have been mine, but I’m not sure whether I want to take the blame for it! We were all in on it - but a lot of the material at that time could have been my idea.”[1] Prior to the movie, McCartney had been creating home movies, and this was a source of inspiration for Magical Mystery Tour.[1]

Production

Despite the fact that Magical Mystery Tour was ultimately the shortest of all Beatles films, nearly ten hours of footage was shot over a two week period. The core of the film was shot beginning on 11 September and finishing on 25 September. [2] The following eleven weeks were mostly spent on editing the film from ten hours to 52 minutes. Scenes that were filmed but not included in the final cut include:

  • A sequence where ice cream, fruit, and lollipops were sold to The Beatles and other coach passengers,
  • John, Paul, George, and Ringo each looking through a telescope, and
  • Happy Nat The Rubber Man (Nat Jackley) chasing women around the Atlantic Hotel's outdoor swimming pool, a sequence that John himself directed. [3]

Much of the film was shot in and around RAF West Malling, an airfield in Kent that had recently been decommissioned.[4] Many of the interior scenes, such as the final ballroom sequence for "Your Mother Should Know," were shot in the disused aircraft hangars. The exteriors, such as the "I Am the Walrus" sequence, and the marathon race, were filmed on the runways and taxi aprons. RAF Air Training Corps cadets can be seen marching in some scenes, and during "I Am the Walrus" an RAF Avro Shackleton is seen orbiting the group.

The mystery tour itself was shot throughout the West Country of England, including Devon and Cornwall,[5] although most of the footage was not used in the finished film. The final striptease sequence was shot at Paul Raymond's Raymond Revuebar in London, and the sequence for "The Fool on the Hill" was shot around Nice, France. The visual sequence for the instrumental "Flying" uses aerial footage which was shot on tinted film that had originally been intended for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. [6]

Script

The script of Magical Mystery Tour was very informal. The Beatles gathered together a group of people for the cast and camera crew, and told them to “Be on the coach on Monday morning”.[1] The film was made up along the way. “Paul had a great piece of paper-just a blank piece of white paper with a circle on it. The plan was: ‘We start here-and we’ve got to do something here…’ We filled it in as we went along.”-Ringo Starr.[1] “We knew most of the scenes we wanted to include, but we bent our ideas to fit the people concerned, once we got to know our cast. If somebody wanted to do something we hadn’t planned, they went ahead. If it worked, we kept it in.”-John Lennon. [1] At one point, Lennon had a dream in which he was a waiter piling spaghetti on a woman’s plate, so the sequence was filmed and included in the movie. [7] Some of the older actors, such as Nat Jackley, were not familiar with the absence of a script, and were disappointed with the lack of one. [1]

Plot

The film was unscripted and shooting proceeded on the basis of a mostly handwritten collection of ideas, sketches, and situations, which Paul McCartney called the "Scrupt." The situation is that of a group of people on a British charabanc bus (in a Bedford VAL Panorama) tour, focusing mostly on Mr. Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) and his recently widowed Auntie Jessie (Jessie Robins). Other group members on the bus include the tour director Jolly Jimmy Johnson (Derek Royle), the tour hostess Miss Wendy Winters (Mandy Weet), conductor Buster Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler), and the other Beatles.

During the course of the tour, "strange things begin to happen" at the whim of "four or five magicians," four of whom are played by The Beatles themselves and the fifth by long-time road manager Mal Evans.

During the journey, Ringo and his Auntie Jessie argue considerably. During the tour, Aunt Jessie begins to have daydreams of falling in love with Buster Bloodvessel, who displays eccentric and disturbing behaviour. The tour involves several strange activities, such as an impromptu race in which each tour group member employs a different mode of transportation (some run, a few jump into cars, a group of people have a long bike they pedal, while Ringo ends up beating them all with the bus). The entire tour group also crawls into a tiny tent in a field, inside which is a projection theatre. There is a strange scene where the group walks through what appears to be a British Army recruitment office. The film culminates with the men of the tour group watching a strip show.

The film is punctuated by musical interludes, which include The Beatles performing "I Am the Walrus" wearing animal masks, George Harrison singing "Blue Jay Way" while waiting on Blue Jay Way Road, and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performing Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes's "Death Cab For Cutie," sung by Vivian Stanshall himself.

Criticism

The British public's reaction to the film was scathing. The film initially aired in the United Kingdom as a made-for-television film on BBC1. It was broadcast in black and white, although the film was shot in colour; it was shown in colour on BBC2 a few days later. The Beatles and the others they worked with on the film felt this was one of the main reasons it received bad reviews. George Martin, the band's producer said, “When it came out originally on British television, it was a colour film shown in black and white, because they didn’t have colour on BBC1 in those days. It looked awful and was a disaster".[8]

Hunter Davies, the band's biographer, said: "It was the first time in memory that an artist felt obliged to make a public apology for his work."[citation needed] Paul McCartney later spoke to the press, saying: "We don't say it was a good film. It was our first attempt. If we goofed, then we goofed. It was a challenge and it didn't come off. We'll know better next time".[9] McCartney also said, “I mean, you couldn’t call the Queen’s speech a gas, either, could you?”[10] However, with the passage of time, McCartney changed his view of the production, saying: "Looking back on it, I thought it was all right. I think we were quite pleased with it ".

Distribution

The poor critical reaction to the telecast soured American television networks from acquiring the film, while its one-hour running length made it commercially unviable for theatrical release. It was not seen in commercial theatres in the US until 1974, when New Line Cinema acquired the rights for limited theatrical and non-theatrical distribution; it was not broadcast on American television until the 1980s in syndication. However, it was shown in 1968 at the Fillmore East in New York City as part of a fundraiser for the Liberation News Service. The critical reception in 1967 had been so poor that no one had properly archived a negative, and these later re-release versions had to be copied from poor-quality prints. By the end of the 1980s, MPI, through rights holder Apple Corps, had released the movie on video, and a DVD release followed many years later. An official re-release was issued on 30 September, 2008.[11]

Songs

The songs in order of their use in the movie:

  1. "Magical Mystery Tour"
  2. "The Fool on the Hill"
  3. "She Loves You" (played during the marathon with a carnival-style organ)
  4. "Flying"
  5. "All My Loving" (orchestrated, as background music)
  6. "I Am the Walrus"
  7. "Jessie’s Dream" (previously unreleased instrumental piece)
  8. "Blue Jay Way"
  9. "Death Cab For Cutie" (written by Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes and performed by their band, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band)
  10. "Your Mother Should Know"
  11. "Magical Mystery Tour" (once more)
  12. "Hello, Goodbye" (finale played over end credits)

Release history on VHS and DVD

Videography

USA

Year Company Format(s) Comments
1978 Media-Home Entertainment VHS/Beta -
1988 Video Collection/Apple VHS and Laserdisc With a digitally re-mixed and re-mastered soundtrack by Producer George Martin.
1992 MPI/Apple Laserdisc -
1997 MPI/Apple DVD First DVD release of The Magical Mystery Tour.
2003 Avenue One DVD Poor quality, though sold in major retailers such as Best Buy

UK

Year Company Format(s) Comments
1980s Empire Films VHS -
1988 MPI/Apple VHS and Laserdisc With a digitally re-mixed and re-mastered soundtrack by Producer George Martin.
1997 MPI/Apple DVD First DVD release of The Magical Mystery Tour.

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Beatles, the: Beatles Anthology, page 272. Chronicle Books, 2000.
  2. ^ Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Chronicle (London: Pyramid Books, Hamlyn, 1992, ISBN 0-600-61001-2), p. 267
  3. ^ Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Chronicle (London: Pyramid Books, Hamlyn, 1992, ISBN 0-600-61001-2), p. 264
  4. ^ The Beatles' bubbly, BBC.
  5. ^ Beatles 'mystery' film discovered, BBC.
  6. ^ Joel Bocko (16 July 2009), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Philadelphia Examiner, http://www.examiner.com/x-13438-Boston-Indie-Movie-Examiner~y2009m7d16-2001-A-Space-Odyssey 
  7. ^ Beatles Anthology. Dir. Bob Smeaton. 1995.
  8. ^ Beatles, the: Beatles Anthology, page 274. Chronicle Books, 2000.
  9. ^ Beatles Database 1967
  10. ^ Davis, Andy: The Beatles Files, page 127. CLB, 1998.
  11. ^ 2008 Rerelease

Bibliography

External links

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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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