Hi-Hi help!

Movie
German title	Hi-Hi help!
Original title	Help!
Country of production	Great Britain
original language	English
Publishing year	1965
length	90 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Richard Lester
script	Mark Behm ; Charles Wood
production	Walter Shenson
music	Lennon / McCartney , Harrison , ; Ken Thorne ( Soundtrack )
camera	David Watkin
cut	John Victor Smith
occupation
	The Beatles; Leo McKern : Clang; Eleanor Bron : Ahme; Victor Spinetti : Prof. Foot; Roy Kinnear : Algernon; Patrick Cargill : Superintendent; John Bluthal : Bhuta; Alfie Bass : Porter; Warren Mitchell : Abdul; Peter Copley : Jeweler; Bruce Lacey: Gardener, mow the lawn; Gretchen Franklin : neighbor;
chronology
← Predecessor ; Yeah Yeah Yeah; (A Hard Day's Night) ; (1964)	Successor → ; Magical Mystery Tour; (1967)

Hi-Hi help! is a British film directed by Richard Lester from 1965. The focus of the plot are the four members of the Beatles . The soundtrack was released as the album Help! released. It was the second feature film after Yeah Yeah Yeah with the music group in the lead role, directed by Richard Lester. In contrast to the first film, Hi-Hi Help! shot in color. All of the songs in the film were composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney with the exception of the title I Need You , which George Harrison contributed.

action

Eleanor Bron plays Help! Ahme

The Beatles, July 1st, 1965

The Beatles in August 1965 during a press conference

Victor Spinetti plays in the film Help! Dr. Foot

A cult community wants to sacrifice a woman to their goddess Kaili. Just as she is about to be killed, Ahme, the high priestess of the cult sees that the woman is not wearing the sacrificial ring. Ringo is now wearing the ring because the victim secretly sent it to him in a fan letter. Determined to retrieve the ring and sacrifice the woman, the Swami Clang, Bhuta (Clang's personal assistant), Ahme and several cult members travel to London . The high priest Clang and his helpers slip into different disguises and use several devices and technical tricks to regain the ring. After five failed attempts to steal the ring, they face the Beatles in an Indian restaurant. Ringo learns that if he doesn't return the ring soon, he will be the next victim, then notices that the ring is stuck on his finger.

The Beatles flee the restaurant to a jewelry store to remove the ring, but the tools he uses break. Then they seek help from the mad scientist Dr. Foot and his assistant Algernon. Dr. Foot tries to stretch the molecules of the ring to allow the ring to slip off Ringo's finger, but only manages to remove all of the other rings from his fingers. Amazed that his equipment has no effect on the ring, Dr. Foot that he must own it in order to achieve world domination. While the two scientists try to put together a laser device , Ahme enters the laboratory and holds the scientists at gunpoint as she lets the Beatles escape.

Ahme falls in love with Paul and now secretly supports the Beatles. She tells the Beatles that Ringo should now be the new victim and prepares a special solution to shrink Ringo's fingers so that she can get the ring. Clang and his helpers storm the Beatles' house and Ahme drops the syringe on Paul's leg. While a shrunken Paul is hiding in an ashtray, the Kaili supporters attack the other Beatles and paint Ringo with red paint. Dr. Foot and Algernon also get into the house and drive away the attackers, but when Dr. Foot does not work, he withdraws again.

The band flees to the Austrian Alps (shot in Obertauern ) to seek refuge, but both the Kaili supporters and Dr. Foot pursue them. The Beatles learn to ski and then play ice stock sport . Dr. Foot has installed a booby trap in one of the ice stocks and the bomb explodes after a delay, blasting a hole in the ice from which a canal swimmer ( Mal Evans ) emerges and asks for directions to the White Cliffs of Dover . The Beatles run down a slope in front of Clang, under the leadership of Ahme, who then leads Clang to the launch pad for a ski jumping competition. Clang becomes the winner and then receives the gold medal.

The group flees back to England and asks for protection from Scotland Yard , where they are attacked with arrows by the cult community. After being attacked while the music was being recorded in the middle of Salisbury Plain , surrounded by the British army , they are now hiding in Buckingham Palace , where they are in a slow motion field by Dr. Foot caught short term.

During a walk with the police, the Beatles enter a small pub where Clang is disguised as a barman. Ringo tries to have a beer but can't take his glass off the table. George Harrison tips it over and unwittingly opens a trap door to the basement that Clang has furnished, into which Ringo falls. There's a tiger in the basement. They call the police inspector, who orders them to sing the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th Symphony for the tiger in order to calm him down. Everyone inside and outside the pub joins in and sings.

Next, the Beatles will fly to the Bahamas in disguise . They are followed by the Scotland Yard officers and Dr. Foot and Clang and the cult community. After various attempts by members of the cult community to capture Ringo through deception by the Beatles failed, the majority of them were then arrested by the Bahamas police. Despite all efforts, Ringo is supported by Dr. Foot captured, who takes him to a ship to cut off his finger so that the ring can finally be in his possession.

Ahme rescues Ringo from the hands of Dr. Foot by swapping it for a vial of "distilled essence". The two try to escape from the ship by jumping into the water. But they are immediately captured in the water by the cult community and tied up on the beach. Clang then begins the ceremony to sacrifice Ringo.

Ringo and Ahme manage to break free again and the ring slips off his finger as he tries to wave to his bandmates and the police to warn them. Ringo puts the ring on Clang's hand and Ahme declares Clang to be the next victim. One final brawl takes place between the Beatles, the cult community and the police. Clang manages to take the ring off himself and gives it to Dr. Foot. The ring is then placed on Bhuta's finger, who is then chosen as the next victim. Meanwhile, the channel swimmer reappears on the beach and asks again for the way to the white cliffs of Dover.

Seven new Beatles songs were more or less appropriately built into the plot of the film.

Dubbed version

The German dubbing was created by and with Rainer Brandt (who spoke the voice of John Lennon in this film as well as in Yeah Yeah Yeah ) in Brandt's Schnodderdeutsch , mainly through the television series Die 2 and the films by Bud Spencer and Terence Hill gained further notoriety. Unlike Yeah Yeah Yeah , the German synchronization of Hi-Hi-Hilfe! not yet available on DVD or Blu-ray Disc .

role	actor	Dubbing voice
John Lennon	John Lennon	Rainer Brandt
Paul McCartney	Paul McCartney	Wolfgang Gruner
George Harrison	George Harrison	Wolfgang Draeger
Ringo Starr	Ringo Starr	Horst Gentzen
Ahme	Eleanor Bron	Ilse Kiewiet
Prof. Foot	Victor Spinetti	Stefan Wigger
Clang	Leo McKern	Martin Hirthe
Superintendent	Patrick Cargill	Friedrich W. Building School

Reviews

“An eccentric cinematic cabinet piece peppered with many intelligent, sometimes quite flat ideas. In the earlier German cinema dubbing, the bizarre wordplay from John Lennon's pen that was so worth listening to in the original was largely ruined. Only in the original version with German subtitles used in 1994 does the film reveal its wit again. "

- Lexicon of international film

"Noisy, colorful cocktail of beat music and numerous, mostly original ideas."

- Protestant film observer

Others

The film was originally supposed to appear under the title Eight Arms to Hold You . The US-American single Ticket to Ride says on the label: From the United Artists Release “Eight Arms to Hold You” .
When the Beatles had to disguise themselves on the run from the cult members and scientists, they anticipated a little how they actually looked three years later, for example John Lennon with round glasses and a beard.
On the movie poster and on the record cover, the Beatles use a winker alphabet to show the letters NUJD (and not HELP , as one might assume).
In the credits it is mentioned that the Beatles dedicated the film to Elias Howe , the inventor of the sewing machine.
The music played during the credits is the Overture of the Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini , with the Beatles adding their laughter, whistling, various noises and comments.

The Beatles on the making of the film

The following quotes by the Beatles are from The Beatles Anthology and reflect their opinions and memories:

George Harrison: “In February we started filming our second film Help! . It was filmed in the Bahamas , Austria and England. The outdoor shots were really fun. We shot some incredible scenes that were never used. We have now found out that all of the recordings have been destroyed. "

Ringo Starr: “The problem was that we flew to the Bahamas to film all the hot scenes and then it was freezing. We had to drive around in shirts and pants and walk around and it was just freezing. "

Paul McCartney: “While we were really committed to learning the lyrics for A Hard Day's Night , we took Help! already less serious. I'm not sure anyone could read this before. I think we always met it on the way to the set. "

Ringo Starr: “The storyline of Help! turned around me, the motif of the ring and of course Kaili. I played the main role and I think it was because of my enthusiasm for the first film. "

John Lennon: “We had no influence on the film. For A Hard Night Day`s we had contributed a lot, and he was half realistic. Dick Lester told us at Help! not what the film would be about. When I look back now, I can see how progressive that was. Virtually a precursor to the Batman hype on TV - that kind of thing. But he never explained it to us. Perhaps that was partly because we were smoking marijuana for breakfast at that time . You couldn't talk to us - there were those glittering eyes and giggling all the time. We lived in our own world "

Ringo Starr: “A hell of a lot of hash was being smoked when we were making the film. It was great. That made it a really funny thing. "

George Harrison: “Austria was next. For me it was the first and last time on skis. It was really dangerous. "

Ringo Starr: “We were in Austria for the first time - we were on skis for the first time. I love it. Dick Lester knew that after lunch there would be little progress. In the afternoon we seldom got past the first line of text. We had such fits of laughter that nobody could do anything about it. "

Paul McCartney: “We filmed the Buckingham Palace scene in which we were all asked to raise our hands. All we had to do was turn around and look amazed or something. But every time we looked into the camera, tears of laughter ran down our cheeks. "

George Harrison: “We filmed this scene for days. There is this pipe with red smoke billowing out of it, and we have the window open and all the guards fall over. This scene just took forever. We laughed each other out loud, we were hysterical and I think we brought Dick Lester to the limit of his patience. "

John Lennon: "I had fun shooting, now I'm reasonably satisfied, but not incredibly proud of it." When we called Help! we were dealing with India for the first time . There were sitars and things on the set - there was this Indian band playing in the background and George was looking at them with interest.

Recording dates and locations

February 23 to March 9, 1965: Recordings begin in the Bahamas
March 14 to March 20, 1965: Recordings in Austria, Obertauern
March 24th, 25th, 26th, 29th, 30th, 31st, March 1st, 2nd, 5th - 9th, 12th, 13th, 20th - 23rd April: Recordings in London at Twickenham Film Studios
April 24, 1965: City Barge, Chiswick, London
27.-30. April 1965: Recorded in London at the Twickenham film studios
3rd to 5th May 1965: Salisbury Plain, Knighton Down, Wiltshire
May 7, 1965: Recorded in London at Twickenham Film Studios
May 9, 1965: Recordings at various locations in London
May 10-11, 1965: Cliveden House, Berkshire
May 18 and June 16, 1965: Dubbing in London at the Twickenham Film Studios

Film music and soundtrack album

The following songs were played in the film, the compositions are, if not stated otherwise, by Lennon / McCartney .

The titles following their use in the film:

Help!
You're Going to Lose That Girl
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Ticket to Ride
I Need You (Harrison)
The Night Before
Another girl
I'm Happy Just to Dance with You (instrumental version while riding my bike)
She's a Woman (from tape during a scene in the "underground")
A Hard Day's Night (played by an Indian group in a restaurantscene)
You Can't Do That (as part of the instrumental score)
From Me to You Fantasy (as part of thescore composedby Ken Thorne )

On August 13, 1965, the soundtrack album Help! released. The album Help! Was released in Germany on August 12, 1965 and one day later in Great Britain . , which contains seven other titles in addition to the seven film songs.

In November 2007 the promotion CD Help! 7 song radio sampler with the seven soundtrack songs released.

publication

title	format	language	date	Label	Remarks
Hi-Hi help! Help!	VHS	English	76899674400 ♠ Feb 1987	MPI Home Video
	VHS		77235959775 ♠Oct 31, 1995	MPI Home Video / Apple	30th anniversary version. Hi-Fi digital stereo; 8 minutes of bonus material
	DVD		77314751950 ♠Nov 14, 1997	MPI Home Video	USA only
	DVD		77700247550 ♠Oct 30, 2007	EMI / Apple	Soundtracks: 5.1 and 2.0 , remixed by Sam Okell and Guy Massey, digitally restored film, bonus DVD with a 30-minute documentary about the film as well as The Restauration of Help !; Memories of Help !, 3 Theatrical Trailers and 1965 Radio Spots . The DVD Deluxe Edition also contains a 60-page hardcover book with pictures from the film as well as an introduction by Richard Lester and a commentary on the film by Martin Scorsese . Embedded in the book are eight cinema exhibition pictures (Reproductions of 8 original US theatrical lobby cards) as well as a cinema poster (Reproduction of an original 1965 theatrical poster) as well as a reproduction of Richards Lester's 122-page film script with handwritten comments.
	Blu-ray		77919693525 ♠June 21th 2013	Universal Music Group / Apple	Release of the DVD version (2007) as Blu-ray

Charts and sales

Charts

Charts	Top ranking	Weeks
Chart placements
Switzerland (IFPI)	4th (2 weeks)	2
United States (Billboard)	1 (142 weeks)	142

Awards for music sales

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA)	gold	7,500
France (SNEP)	platinum	20,000
Canada (MC)	8 × platinum	80,000
Spain (Promusicae)	gold	10,000
United States (RIAA)	5 × platinum	500,000
All in all	2 × gold 14 × platinum	617,500