It
was a film produced in psychedelic color that debuted on BBC1 at a time when
most British televisions were black and white.
It was programmed for Boxing Day, a traditional evening of family
television viewing, guaranteeing those least inclined to appreciate a spot of
hippy goofiness were most likely to see it.
Due to its disastrous reception, many Beatles fans only know The Magical Mystery Tour as the
bestselling album. After years of
obscurity, the film has been re-released for public consumption, even returning
to broadcast television with a special presentation this Friday on PBS’s Great Performances (promo here) to be followed
by the premiere of Francis Hanly’s behind-the-scenes documentary Magical Mystery Tour Revisited.
The
plot, such as it is, will hardly matter to diehard Beatles fans. The real attraction is the music, including
the band’s only video performance of “I Am the Walrus,” done in precisely the
style one might expect. The audience
follows the day-glo tour bus as it makes a series of surprise stops throughout
the English countryside. Ringo Starr
plays Richard Starkey who takes his recently bereaved Aunt Jessie on the tour,
bickering like cats and dogs every step of the way. The other three lads are also on the tour,
essentially playing unnamed versions of themselves, as well as a pack of
trickster wizards. Stops will include a
visit to an army recruiting station, a chaotic marathon, a brief swing through
a London strip club, with a number of wacky dream interludes in between.
Seen
with contemporary eyes, MMT, directed
by the Fab Four with the assistance of former Hitchcock collaborator Bernard
Knowles, looks exactly like the
trippy jokiness we would expect from the post-Pepper Beatles. Sort of like
a series of Python sketches stitched together, but not nearly as consistently
funny, it makes perfect sense to find Terry Gilliam singing its praises in Revisited. Still, the film itself very definitely feels
like a giddy time-capsule from a more innocent age when Postmodernism was
little more than glint in the eye of the French intelligentsia.
At
just under an hour’s running time, MMT offers
viewers the title song, “Fool on the Hill,” “Your Mother Should Know,” and the
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performing “Death Cab for Cutie” amidst its improvised
tomfoolery. Frankly, the latter number
might be the most memorable, since it accompanies a PBS-safe striptease. Ironically, the making-of-program clocks in at
almost exactly the same length. We hear
from both surviving Beatles as well as Martin Scorsese, who evidently saw every
movie ever made when he was a teenager and influenced by everyone of them. Hanly also incorporates some archival footage
of John Lennon and George Harrison.
Everyone seems to credit or blame Paul McCartney with the original
concept for MMT, but that hardly
makes any sense, since “Revolution #9” played backwards clearly implies he died
before 1967.
