For most Beatles fans, their movies are laudable. Rife with the band’s titular humor, irreverent, and fun-loving, each of the Beatles’ films was a triumph in one way or another. Nevertheless, John Lennon felt that one film in particular was more humiliating than a success. Find out which film that is, below.
Videos by American Songwriter
The Beatles Movie John Lennon Thought Was Humiliating
According to Lennon, the process for making the Beatles’ second film, Help!, was a doozy. The band was at the height of Beatlemania and, as such, had numerous responsibilities that far outweighed the usual asks of a rock band.
While filming Help!, Lennon says the band was forced to spend time with pre-teen fans to appease what he called “Jumped-up middle-class b***hes and b****rds.” He says, if they refused, there would be threats about going to the press–which would risk ruining everything the band had built so far.
“It was always that, they were always threatening what they would tell the press about us, the bad publicity if we didn’t see their bloody daughter with braces on her teeth,” Lennon once said. “And we had these people thrust on us.
“Like sitting with the governor of the Bahamas because we were making Help! and being insulted by these fuckin’ jumped-up middle-class b***hes and b****rds who would be commenting on our work and our manners,” he continued. “I couldn’t take it. It hurt me so; I would go insane, swearing at them and whatever. It was awful. All that business was awful. It was a fuckin’ humiliation.”
He went so far as to call the entirety of his time in the Beatles a humiliation. “One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that’s what I resent,” he said.
Lennon clearly had his opinions about the work. Moreover, the film didn’t do as well as its predecessor, A Hard Day’s Night, so perhaps Lennon’s negative connotation about the work was correct.
(Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns)
