On the set

 

Between takes

 

John read the news today (oh boy)

 

Sun Rise (1965)

 Sun Rise

By Burnett Rigg

Fabulous Magazine

1965

    "Help!" shouted Victor Spinetti. "Someone ransacked my pad!" And he wasn't just plugging the Beatles' new movie. For a fortune and souvenirs of the locations of the second film Vic had made with John, George, Paul, and Ringo had flown actor Victor. 

    He was the stuck up TV producer in A Hard Day's Night, and is the zany professor in Help!  He told me about the robbery the morning after it happened in his London flat. With Help! now running in the West End, Fab wanted to look back on the making of it. This was why I had called on Victor. 

    We were sitting in his lounge, which has a window with a panoramic view of London. "Ringo and  Maureen live just up the road, "said Vic. "I was over at their flat a couple of nights ago. John, Cynthia, George, Pattie Boyd, Paul, and Jane Asher were there too. We were going to a party, but we didn't move. Instead, Maureen made tea, and we just sat chatting and watching television."

     He got up and fixed a couple of drinks, handed me one, sat down, and said, " You asked me about the film. I love working on it even more than A Hard Day's Night, and that's saying something.! 

    "We had fabulous fun in the Bahamas and in the Alps. We got up at dawn nearly every morning in both places and began shooting straight away. In the Bahamas, it was very hot, and we swam every morning before work.

     "George celebrated his 22nd birthday there. We had a rave-up party that night. In fact, the birthday Beatle gave me the candles from his cake to distribute among the members of my fan club."

     Vic's success in the States through A Hard Day's Night and on Broadway with the show, Oh, What a Lovely War, has gained him four fan clubs, three stateside, and one here in Britain, which keeps him busy answering fan mail, not that Vic minds. He went on happily talking about Help! 

    "One time, our director, Dick Lester had called a coffee break on the set," he said. "John Lennon and I were sipping coffee in a corner, and suddenly he turned to me and said, 'Hey, Victor, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. You know when the director shouts 'action' and all the others, Eleanor, Braun, Leo, McKern, and Roy Kinnear jumped into their characters? Why do you just stay the same? Does that make your acting as bad as ours?"

     And Vic spoke to me about George. "The first time I saw George was at London Airport en route to Nassau and  he said, 'Victor, I just want you to know that my mom's Glad you're in the picture with us. I thought this was great. Actually, one night, George and I went on a crazy spin around Nassau in his open sports car. (The Beatles each had an open sports car to run around in. ) Suddenly, George began singing at the top of his voice. He belted out numbers like 'Leaning on a Lamp Post'  and went on singign "Cleaning Windows" and a host of other old-time hits made famous by the late George Formby. I asked him how he managed to memorize all the words of old numbers. 'I really dug old George Formby,' was George's reply. Then it began raining, and we ended up tearing along singing 'When You Walk Through a Storm.' It was crazy, but fun."

     He talked about Ringo and Paul. "Ringo and Paul couldn't get together to supply a cabaret for all of us on the Film Unit often enough, as far as we were concerned, they do an improvised act, which is hysterical. I'm not joking when I say we were on the floor, helpless. What fabulous ad lib talent these boys have.

     Finally Victor Spoke about Victor. "There was the night our plane touched down in New York, and a load of members of my fan club had turned up to meet me. They cheered as I left the plane. They didn't know the Beatles were on board. Then the boys followed behind me, but I had stolen the scene. John, George, Paul, and Ringo still send me up about it."

     I could have listened for hours to Victor Beatle talk, but it was noon, and Vic had a lunch appointment. I rose to leave, but not without a picture of Vic dressed as a guardsman and George saluting him. That was one souvenir the burglar did not pinch from Vic's pad. I.

Tape to Type (1965)

John is being interviewed by Fred Robbins

 Tape to Type

Interview with John Lennon Part 2

Photoplay Magazine

1965

Fred:   What about this musical that you and Paul McCartney are planning to write together? Have you started it yet?

 John:   It's just a matter of getting enough time. We'd like to do it properly-- write a story and the music. So I think we won't do it for another year or two when things are quieter. 

Fred: How do you go about writing your songs? 

John:  I think it's partly something natural and partly something that Paul and I spark off in each other. Individually, we probably wouldn't have written so many of them, and they might not have been of such good quality as the ones we've written together. It's just luck. 

Fred: You'd say then that Northern Songs Ltd, which is now on the London Stock Exchange, has a pretty good future?

 John:  I think it has a great future, although I don't know much about the financial side of it. Some people say it's speculative stock because no one knows how long Paul and I will stay together, but we intend to stick together. And if you can write songs, you can write them all your life. Even if the public's taste should change, it shouldn't make too much difference. People forget that our songs are songs in their own right, not just rock and roll songs. They can easily be sung in any style you like.

 Fred: I've heard you sing many songs that aren't your own, like "Button up Your Overcoat " and "Nothing Can Be Finer Than to Be in Carolina." Why don't you make an album of someone else's songs for a change?

 John: It's not very profitable.  But we do have an interest in songs and music of all kinds. We probably know a million songs, but we very rarely sing our own songs when we're just entertaining ourselves or our friends.

 Fred: What about your writing? Will you write more books? 

John:  I've been writing since before I started playing the guitar. I can always turn it out, but I don't know if the standard will remain the same, and a lot depends on whether people will want to read it.

 Fred:  I heard that you were going to stop doing concerts. 

John: That's not true. It's just because we haven't done any while working on the film, but we have concerts planned for Europe, America, and Britain, too. Now, does that sound like we are planning to give up tours and concerts?

 Fred: A lot of people have been very busy analyzing the effect the Beatles have had on teenagers, particularly psychologists and sociologists. What do you think about all this? 

John: You can analyze anything--- what someone thinks of a bottle of milk, if you like. If you believe in that stuff. You can go on and on, analyzing, creating theories, and philosophizing about them. But in the end, it doesn't really mean anything, and it doesn't matter anyway.

 Fred:  The Beatles will probably go down in history as being one of the biggest things in show business, at least of this generation. Don't you think so?

 John: If you read the history books, you find very little in them about show business people, and I think we'll probably be forgotten like the rest of them.

 Fred: If you didn't have protection from the big crowds of fans, do you think it would be really dangerous for you? Do you really think that you might be seriously injured if they got out of hand?

 John:  I think we'd probably get killed. The fans wouldn't mean to harm us, but we have nearly been caught once or twice, and it was really frightening. When five people want to touch you, it's all right, but when it's 500, you forget that they're fans and you want to run for your life.

 Fred: What's the next worst thing about fame? What bothers you personally? 

John: The next worst thing for me is the social life that goes with it. You know, meetings, lords, governors, and so on. I just don't like it. It has nothing to do with me. I'm writing and singing, and I don't like having to go to dinners. People are always trying to draw me into polite conversation and boring me with stuff. This kind of thing doesn't interest me at all, and it never will. 

Fred: Have you given any thought to what will happen as you get older? Will the fans forget you in time?

 John: Of course they will. And it could happen any day, but we're not worried about it. We'll be sorry when it's over, but obviously, we're not going to be jumping around at 40. 

Fred: Success hasn't spoiled you guys, has it? It doesn't seem to have changed you at all. 

John: No, I'm glad you say that. Some people think it has, but they don't realize that we were just as lousy before we were successful. 

At Cliveden House

 Photo from the Beatles filming Help! at Cliveden house were recently auctioned in the UK 

Brushing a Beatles hair

 

Filming at an airport

 

Remembering a few days in the life of John Lennon (1980)

 

The young Beatles posed for this picture with press agent Jerry Pam during the filming of "Help!" on Balmoral Island in Nassau, Bahamas.  From left, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.  The shot was made by Life photographer Henry Grossman

Remembering a Few Days in the Life of John Lennon

By Jerry Pam

Vareity

December 12, 1980

    My first meeting with the Beatles took place in Nassau on their second film, which at that time was called Eight Arms to Hold You. When I arrived, Shenson said that he would do the introductions. 

    John Lennon, my first Beatles, started to sing a new song he had composed in honor of the occasion. It was entitled, "What is a Jerry Pam?" The group refused to believe a fellow Englishman could have such a moniker.

     I really thought that I would now be famous, which is not what a good press agent should be. But alas, the song was never published. Perhaps someone, an archivist, will rescue me from obscurity.

     George Harrison and Paul McCartney then came over, and were charming and asked loads of questions about Hollywood and their idol, Elvis Presley. Two years later, Colonel Parker would come to the rented house where the Beatles were staying in Benedict Canyon during one of the two concerts here, and invite the famed four to meet Elvis. This started a one-hour discussion as to what location should be used for this rock summit. After much wrangling, Paul ended the stalemate by saying, "While we are in the States, we go to his house, and when he comes to England, he can come to ours." And so it was. 

    The shooting of Help! on the Balmoral Island in the Bahamas was smooth but tense. Henry Grossman of Life magazine came in, and the group wouldn't pose at all.  But Shenson and I established, after collective evidence, that Grossman was John F Kennedy's favorite lenser, and the stills were accomplished.

     The night before the company departed the Bahamas, a dinner party was given by the Beatles. And I sat with Lennon and Derek Taylor, who at one time was their PR representative. Taylor was taping for La radio station KRLA. During the party, Lennon told me that he was writing a second book, A Spaniard in the Works, and hoped that somebody would publish it. He seemed to protect himself with a sincere innocence of his clout, while another part of him knew or sensed how to use that clout adroitly

    I next saw the Beatles in Los Angeles prior to the Hollywood Bowl concert that was organized by Bob Eubanks. A press conference at the Capitol tower building was almost aborted. The group was to be transported by an armored truck, and as it arrived in the parking lot, a sea of fans came down on the truck like a tsunami, very nearly tipping it over.

     Security was always a problem. And although I tried to convince the group's manager, Brian Epstein, to separate the group, he was adamant that they traveled together.

     With the concert at Dodger Stadium, we thought we had a foolproof plan. The stage was set up on the pitcher's mound with a tent alongside, ostensibly to act as a dummy dressing room. Inside, there was a car to transport the Beatles to the center field gates and out of the stadium. But the car went to the wrong gate, and before it could back up, 1000s of fans were in its way. The driver had the sense to drive to the player's dugout, and the Beatles were escorted to safety. But there was a problem. Someone had stolen the keys to the car. Three hours later, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were secreted out of the stadium in an ambulance. 

    There were many stories relating to the group's stay in Hollywood. Some are even true. Since the four were virtually prisoners in the rented house, the studios provided them with current picks and projection equipment. One night, they requested Cat Ballou. The next day, Lennon, usually positive, surprised me with some very negative reaction to the film. He was annoyed by the laugh track on the film every time something funny occurred. The studio, it seemed, had sent down a print with an experimental laugh track to be used in drive-ins. When I reported Lennon's reaction, the laugh tracks were dumped without further testing. Lennon spoke accurately for his generation.

     Lennon was always amused at reviews in which certain deep symbolisms were read into or out of his work in A Hard Day's Night, the basic and unfailing laugh line concurred Wilford Bramble being referred to as a "clean old man". Certain reviewers felt the line was used to show that the Beatles were clean despite their long hair. Others referred to their antics as similar to the Marx Brothers and made long analyses of Marxists (brothers, that is) derivations. None of the Beatles had ever even seen a Marx Brothers film.

     On one occasion, four teenagers hired a helicopter to fly over the rented Benedict Canyon house, on the off chance that they would see one of the Beatles. I invited the four teens to a press conference after finding out that they had saved for six months to rent the helicopter. John liked the idea and immediately complied with some of my press requests he had previously refused.

On the search for Ringo

 

Messy Hair on Lennon and McCartney

 

Paul skis past Neil

 

The Help Premiere

 

A little Help

 

From the diaphram

 

Buddy McGregor interviews the Beatles

 

May 11, 1965

Back in 1993, I bought a VHS of a Beatles "Lost Interview."   It was one of the worst Beatles VHSs ever made. It showed Buddy McGregor talking to the camera about when he met the Beatles on the set of Help! at the Cliveden House.  What I remember about the tape is that this guy goes on and on about this meeting and how the Beatles played baseball, and he says he had home movie footage of them, but it isn't shown.  Then he finally plays the "lost interview," which is a terrible interview in which he talks about how the Beatles are eating popsicles and calling them lolly ice. It was obvious to me that the Beatles had smoked something before they spoke to Buddy.  

I scanned the cover of the VHS, and those are the photos I am sharing here. I tried to find the video on YouTube without any luck, but I did come across the 4-minute "lost interview," and you can listen to it here. 

I also looked up this interview in John Winn's book  Way Beyond Compare, and this is what it says"

This would be The Beatles' last day in front of the cameras for Help!, and the last of the two day shoot at historic Cliveden House in Berkshire, which was doubling as the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Official Beatles photographer Bob Whitaker was among those allowed on teh film set, and he smuggled an American DJ, Buddy McGregor of Houston's KNUZ-AM, into what was supposed to be a set closed to outside press. The Beatles were in such a good mood that day celebrating the wrap that they probably wouldn't have cared.  They spent some time playing softball on the grounds, and challened the film crew to a relay race.  Team Beatle (supplemented by Neil Aspinall and Alf Bicknell) triumphed over three other teams, and McGregor captured some of the action on his tape recorder. 

After  lunch break, the group drove away from the set and wandered into the wooded ground for a joint or two, and returned to giggle their way through the final scenes.  McGregor was then able to corner John, Paul, and Ringo for a brief interview while they sated their munchies by sucking popsicles.  Not surpisingly, the  conversation is less than illulminating, as they recap the race, discuss Ringo's car and the Astrodome scoreboard, and debate the differences in British and American English. John explains the "Spainard/spanner" pun in his new book title, and we learn that popcicles are called "lolly ices" in Britian, although noboday can agree to the derivation of either term. 

Does anyone else remember this VHS?  I am going to have to dig through that box in my garage and see if I still have it.  (By the way -- that sentence "John Lennon is funny." has always stood out to me as a strange thing to put on the front of a VHS)

 

John and Ringo post a letter

 May 9, 1965

Paul on the Floor

 May 7, 1965 

This had to have been a lot of fun to shoot. 

Paul Takes Charge

 May 4, 1965

Having a meal at the hotel

 May 3, 1965