A Hard Day's Sh**e

Rating: 5/10 (3 May 2001)

The Beatles have much to be praised for, genuinely breaking new musical ground in their careers. However, one thing that's often overlooked is how rubbish they could be, too. Aside from a momentary blip with the Help! Soundtrack they didn't produce a decent album until 1966's Revolver. While they had some halfway decent singles the first three years of their professional life delivered bland generic pap that sounded like a close cousin of Gerry and the Pacemakers. Their twee head-shaking antics are also cringingly embarrassing to watch now, and in all honesty only three songs in this film are actually any good.
Ah yes, The Beatles films. Self-indulgent tripe the lot of 'em, from the plotless turgidity of Yellow Submarine to the Tragical Mystery Bore. Only George chucking his teddy out the pram in Let It Be produces any cinematic interest, so that while the superb Monkees film Head goes underrated, this pile of tat still gets criminally overpraised. To be fair, the direction is absolutely excellent, and the black and white photography looks superb. Yet while some of the one-liners are quite witty (Alun Owen's script certainly providing more mirth than the band's real-life Scouse banter) they are drained of anything approaching a laugh by the absolutely chronic acting. Shy George is predictably lame, though gregarious Ringo surprises by delivering a performance that can only be described as downright abysmal. John does little better, leaving it to Paul to be the one to hold any form of amateur thesping self-respect. The forced cheeky chappie dialogue and "loveable scally" characterisations soon begin to grate, and whoever told The Beatles they could act should be shot. The string of repetitive set pieces is fine for blinkered fans of the group, though casual listeners may become more easily distracted.
Most irritating bit is John's line about Ringo: "'Ey, 'e's reading the Queen. That's an in-joke, you know." Oh really? Well if it's an in-joke then why include it? What it really cries out for is incidental music to paper over the embarrassing gaps between mistimed lines. Other than two instrumentals the entire action passes by in a ropily acted vacuum. Only player to preserve dignity is Wilfrid Bramwell, effortlessly eclipsing the others in this sorry affair. Other things to think about: People who resented The Beatles' later years when they got heavily into drugs like to imagine this period as an example of a wholesome band. Yet John does a coke joke with a bottle and Ringo admitted to being stoned when he filmed the canal scene. Also weird to hear George's original docker's accent in all its glory. A fictionalised 36 hours in the lives of The Beatles so fabricated their manager is a red-blooded hetero male. If this was a true reflection of the lives of the group then I'd feel sorry for them... for they must have had very boring lives indeed.