From: mcsdc1al@dct.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles
Subject: Re: A Beatles movie nver made
Date: 6 Jan 93 12:59:05 GMT
Organization: Dundee Institute of Technology

In article <1993Jan6.022750.13293@midway.uchicago.edu>, ifsa@quads.uchicago.edu (andrea m koziol) writes:
> Greetings all.  The current discussion of Beatles Videos (thanks too for all
> the work, <esc>!) has got me thinking about a recent read of mine, _The
> Orton Diaries_, edited by John Lahr, published by Harper and Row. The Beatles
> connection will be clear in a moment.  
> 	I wanted to learn more about this sixties English playwright, esp.
> after my brother raved about the farces Orton wrote.  How true it is that
> "nothing is Beatle-proof!"    I found out that Walter Shenson, of Beatle film
> fame, contacted Orton through his agent about possibly writing a film script
> for the Beatles' third movie.  Orton chronicles in his diary about writing the
> script, called "Up against it".  He also writes about going to Brian Epstein's
> house for dinner and meeting Paul.
> 	Quoting from the diaries (without permission, of course): "11 Feb.
> [1967] He [Shenson] was most concerned to impress upon me that 'the boys'
> shouldn't be made to do anything in the film that would reflect badly upon 
> them. 'You see,' he said, 'the kids will all imitate whatever the boys do.'
> I hadn't the heart to tell him that the boys, in my script, have been caught
> *in flagrante*, become involved in dubious political activity, dressed as
> women, committed murder, been put in prison and committed adultery.  And the
> script isn't finished yet."
> 	If you know the plays _Loot_ and _What the Butler Saw_ then you know
> Orton.  We can only imagine what this script, filmed in post-Pepper time, would
> be like, because the script was never used.  And then Orton was killed in 
> August 1967.  
> 	Still, it could have been more interesting than Magical Mystery Tour.
> If you want to know what dinner at Brian's was like, I could quote a bit
> more......

Anyone who@s read "Up Against It" will probably have realised that it wasn't a
very good Beatles vehicle anyway.  Personally I think had they made the film it
would have been a bit of a failure.  For a start, the characterisations don't
really fit the Beatles too happily at all and if you look at the characters
they would have played (off-hand I can only remember Paul's character, Ian
McTurk) you'll see that there wouldn't really be much for them to do.  You can
easily imagine John and George getting bored with the project.
    I think that may have had as much to do with the rejection of the idea as
anything else.  The Beatles' image as lovable moptops was something they were
trying to shift anyway so the plot, which involves the assassination of the
female Prime Minister and a war between men and woman among other things,
wouldn't be seen as too racy (it's not as scandalous as the diary entry makes
out).

A good quote from the diary that Andrea missed out was Orton's comments to
Senshon (or perhaps it was Paul or Brian) about previous plans which reminded
me so much of John's humour:

   Senshon : "They were going to do The Three Musketeers"
   Orton : "Oh, that's been done to death"
   Senshon : "Brigitte Bardot was going to be Milady de Winter"
   Orton : "She's been done to death too!"

Excellent quote.  Always one to further the cause, I'd direct anyone who likes
sharp comedy to read Orton's "What the Butler Saw", which is bloody marvellous.

Ta Ra

**Lucas**


> andrea          ifsa@midway.uchicago.edu
>    beepbeep beepbeep yeah!