Category: Music

15 Fab Facts About “Help!”

Posted on by

Sarene Leeds and Mental_Floss present 15 Fab Facts About Help!  Here are three of my favorites…

1. HELP! WAS ALMOST CALLED EIGHT ARMS TO HOLD YOU.
At first listen, “Eight Arms to Hold You” sounds like a nice idea: who wouldn’t want to be held by all four Beatles, right? But when Lester reveals that the Ringo Starr-suggested title was in fact a reference to the multi-armed statue of Kaili that appears in the film, and not a teenage girl’s fantasy of being cradled by The Fab Four, much of the romantic element fades away. In the book accompanying the film’s 2007 DVD re-release, Lester claims that he had wanted to call the movie Help from the get-go, but the title had already been registered. Luckily, thanks to The Beatles’ lack of enthusiasm to write a song called “Eight Arms to Hold You” and a legal loophole involving an exclamation point, the film was able to proceed as Help!

3. THE MOVIE’S INTERNATIONAL LOCALES WERE REALLY JUST AN EXCUSE FOR THE BEATLES TO TRAVEL.
While A Hard Day’s Night stuck to the familiarity of London, Help! was a veritable travelogue, sending The Beatles to such far-flung destinations as the Bahamas and the Austrian Alps in their attempts to evade the evil Clang (Leo McKern) and his cult of Eastern sycophants. But as Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr revealed in Anthology interviews, the film’s travel budget was increased mainly because they wanted to go to the aforementioned locales. McCartney recalled how they would say to the writers, “We’ve never been to the Bahamas—could you write that in?” and “I’ve never been skiing. I wonder if you could write in a scene with skiing?”

But The Beatles learned the consequences of their actions the hard way: the weather in the Bahamas was freezing at the time (“It was absolutely bloody cold,” said Starr), and their crash course in skiing consisted of, according to the drummer, little more than being “edged down the mountain.”

10. THE MUSICAL NOTES IN THE “TICKET TO RIDE” SEQUENCE WERE PRODUCED OUT OF NECESSITY RATHER THAN CREATIVITY.

There’s a cute moment in the “Ticket to Ride” sequence where The Beatles are skiing in the Austrian Alps and they appear to ski right underneath part of the song’s musical score (it starts at around 1:27 in the above video). But as Lester explained in the 2007 documentary that accompanied the film’s DVD release, the decision to add musical notes came from the fact that the lads were skiing under some unsightly “telegraph wires” (Lester’s words; for all we know they could’ve been telephone wires). Since he couldn’t remove the wires digitally—this was the pre-CGI era, after all—he figured they’d make an ideal musical staff instead!

15 Sweet Facts About “Stepbrothers”

Posted on by

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Sweet Facts About Stepbrothers.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. JON HAMM ALMOST PLAYED DEREK.
It came down to Hamm, Thomas Lennon, and Adam Scott for the part of the jerk brother Derek. Scott got the part.

6. RICHARD JENKINS USED TO WORK FOR REILLY’S FATHER.
Toward the end of filming, Jenkins—who played Reilly’s father, Dr. Robert Doback—heard from the actor playing his son that his father was also from the Chicago area and used to work in the linen business. It was then that Jenkins realized that he had worked for John Reilly (John’s father) in the summer of 1969, and had met John Jr. when he was four years old.

9. PABLO CRUISE PLAYED THE PREMIERE.
The 1970s pop-rock group were so pleased to see one of their T-shirts worn in the movie’s trailer that they offered to perform at the film’s premiere.

14 Not So Dirty Facts About “Dirty Dancing”

Posted on by


Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 14 Not So Dirty Facts About Dirty Dancing.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. THE FILM GAVE NEWMAN HIS FIRST BIG MOVIE ROLE.
Before starring as Stan, the resort’s social director, Wayne Knight had small roles in a few TV movies, including an uncredited role in the nuclear holocaust drama The Day After. Dirty Dancing showcased his talents, which in 1992 led him to be cast as Newman on Seinfeld.

10. PENNY BRIEFLY TRANSFORMED INTO A POP STAR IN THE LATE 1980s.
Cynthia Rhodes made a name for herself as dancer Tina Tech in 1983’s Flashdance and starred as John Travolta’s dance partner/love interest in Staying Alive that same year. But it was her role as Johnny Castle’s dancing partner, Penny, that garnered her the most notice. A couple of years after Dirty Dancing, she married singer Richard Marx (they’ve since divorced), and she briefly filled in as the lead singer of L.A. pop group Animotion, known for their hits “Room to Move” and “Obsession.”

12. GREY PLAYED A VERSION OF HERSELF ON THE SITCOM IT’S LIKE, YOU KNOW…
The short-lived ABC sitcom (1999-2000) featured Grey as a member of a Seinfeld-like gang, except the show swapped out New York City for Los Angeles. She allowed herself to be self-deprecating, even poking fun at her nose job and her Dirty Dancing celebrity. Arthur (Chris Eigeman) meets “Jennifer Grey” and goes, “Oh, like the actress. Dirty Dancing. You spell it the same way as her?” “I am Jennifer Grey,” she responds, then she does a dance to prove it. “You look different,” he says. “Nose job!” She blurts. “Just one?” he retorts. (She had two of them.)

10 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About The Beatles

Posted on by

and Neatorama present 10 Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About The Beatles. Here are three of my favorites…

2) Most “takes” on a Beatles song.
The Beatles were known as perfectionists in the studio, often recording dozens of takes on a specific song. The Beatle song with the most attempted takes was actually never released by the Beatles.

“Not Guilty,” a George Harrison song, took 102 takes, before it was ultimately rejected for the Beatles 1968 album The Beatles.

5) Strange Beatles products sold.

After the Beatles landed in America in 1964, Beatle products (both licensed and unlicensed) flooded the markets. Beatle t-shirts, wigs, books, hats, guitars, wallpaper, notebooks, board games, were just a few of the successful Beatle-related products sold on the market. In one city, Beatle bedsheets were sold from slicing up the sheets the boys had slept on. Beatle pillowcases were sold in the same manner. Beatle razor stubble and Beatle bathwater were attempted too.

One enterprising salesman in New York supposedly made a profit selling bottles of “Beatle Breath.”

10) John and Paul once composed the score for a ballet.

In 1963, John Lennon and Paul McCartney actually composed the score for a ballet- for the first and only time in their careers. The ballet was called Mods and Rockers.

It opened on December 18, 1963 and ran through January 11, 1964 at the Prince Charles Theater in London. Even by this early point in their careers, the Sunday Times declared John and Paul “the greatest composers since Beethoven.”

Z-View: “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me”

Posted on by

I saw Glen Campbell perform live when I was a kid.  Glen Campbell was one of the first celebrities that I can remember seeing “in person.”  The concert took place at the Indiana State Fair.   At the time Mr. Campbell was a recording star, but would go on to have his own television series and appear in movies.

Glen Campbell always came across as a nice guy.  Mr. Campbell seemed like someone you’d enjoy sharing a meal with or just talking to.  That made the news that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s even more tragic.  Not that you’d want anyone to get the disease, but especially not one of the good people.

Last October I posted about Glen Campbell’s song, I’m Not Gonna Miss You.  At the time I said it was one of the saddest songs that I’d ever heard.  I still think it is.  Perhaps even more so after watching the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me takes us behind the scenes for a look at how Alzheimer’s wrecks the life of not only the person with the disease but also everyone who is close to the him/her.

Luckily for Mr. Campbell he has a devoted wife, family and friends and the financial resources to provide him a superior support system.  Still even with all of that, the disease is unstoppable.

Mark Evanier wrote about being at a party a few years ago and the excitement that went through the crowd as it became known that Glen Campbell was going to sing a few songs… and the initial discomfort when they realized the toll Alzheimer’s was taking on him.  Mr. Evanier goes on to say, heck, instead of me telling you what he said, why don’t you just click on over and read his words for yourself.  Like everything Mark Evanier posts, it is more than worth a read.  I’ll be here when you get back.

I want to echo Mark Evanier’s recommendation that you check out Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.

Rating:   

As I was posting this, I noticed (and it was probably unintentional) that the title of the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me can also read like Glen Campbell: Ill Be Me.