Besides making some of the most famous and influential albums of all time, The Beatles also starred successful movies in the 60s. After the end of the fab four in 1970, guitarist George Harrison started his solo career and even worked for some years as a film producer for the company he own called Handmade Films. In an interview Entertainment Tonight back in 1987 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), the musician gave his opinion on 3 famous Beatles movies.
What was the opinion of George Harrison on 3 Beatles movies
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) and “Help!” (1965)
“I think ‘Hard Day’s Night‘ and ‘Help!‘ under the circumstance, first of all ‘Hard Day’s Night’, you know, everybody likes to make a movie. But we’ve just made a few records (that) got popular now and they’re making a movie. They’ve got a writer who met us for like three days and wrote the script. I think that the magic about it was that at least that he picked up the idea, the vibe of what was happening on the road and translated that into… it wasn’t brilliant.”
“But it was adequate and considering we were all pretty usuless in acting. I think Dick Lester should take a lot of credit because it was his ability and his experience with comedy that he had done before with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and stuff. He had a great sense of humor and he a great ability to let us what we were. I think that all worked out good.”
George Harrison continued:
“There were plenty of songs, catchy little tunes and that was fine. I think ‘Help!’ had to step up a bit, it was a big color film. But still pretty funny, even in a slightly dumb way. That’s why I keep refering to ‘The Rutles’, you know. ‘The Rutles’ to me, ‘Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’ (are) very ‘Rutley’ and I think they worked out.
“The Rutles” mentioned by Harrison is a Beatles parody band created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for a sketch in Idle’s mid-70s BBC series Rutland Weekend Television. “A Hard Day’s Night” was the first Beatles movie, released in 1964. It pictured what was the life of the four Liverpool boys during the Beatlemania with hundreds of fans chasing them everywhere they would go. Their second movie “Help!”, released in 1965. It showed the band trying to record a new album while a sinister cult and mad scientists tried to steal of Ringo Starr‘s rings.
“Let It Be” (1970)
“The other you mentioned, which was really supposed to be us rehearsing to make a record. They were just filming the rehearsal that turned into the movie, you ‘Let It Rot’ (laughs). I didn’t like that. The scenes, like we on the roof, that was quite good. There’s bits and piece it’s okay.”
“But most of it just makes me so aggravated to I can’t watch it. Because it was a particularly bad experience that we were having at that time. It’s bad enough when you’re having it. Let alone having it filmed and recorded. So you’ve got to watch it for the rest of your life. I don’t like it,” George Harrison said.
Released in 1970, the documentary “Let It Be” showed the troubled sessions of the recording of their final album of the same name. The record was made when the musicians already knew John Lennon was leaving the group. Guitarist George Harrison even quit the band during those sessions, returning a few days later. In 2022, famous director Peter Jackson released “Get Back“, documentary that uses unseen recordings from that movie.
Besides the three movies mentioned by George Harrison, The Beatles also did “Magical Mystery Tour” (1967) and the animation “Yellow Submarine” (1968). Over the decades dozens of documentaries and movies were made by the band and their members.