Frances

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If....

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!

If …. (1968), directed by Lindsey Anderson, has as its primary theme that abuse by those in power can initiate a violent reaction against such extreme authority and, ironically, produce the type of chaos the ruling class wants to suppress. The title comes from the Rudyard Kipling poem and its upper-class superior tone of reining in freedom is what the film takes aim at.

The story is set at an English boarding school, and Anderson said he likes stories that are a microcosm of society. A note at the beginning urges the need for knowledge, but the result of what these students learn is the opposite of what the educational establishment desired. The somber words of the school song are sung, and they brim with loyalty and duty. As the credits roll, the music is replaced with disruptive sounds of boys in contrast to the lyrics, showing that there is a desire to fight rigidity and just enjoy their youth. The film breaks the story into chapters with different headings and some begin with religious readings and singing which then contrasts with the actions of those in charge and those that revolt against them.

The seniors, or “Whips,” rule as prefects over others. This oppressive hierarchy is entrenched in British custom. At the beginning of the school year, those returning to the school call the first-year students “scum,” and remind them they have no right to address the older students. One Whip tells a new student to carry the senior’s belongs to his room, and in a very derogatory command tells the youth to warm up his toilet seat. Basically, they treat the first-year students as slaves.

When the rulers are not present, the young boys are loud and fight with each other, showing that attempting to overly contain natural impulses only leads to an equal and opposite reaction. New student Jute (Sean Bury) is taken to the “sweat room,” where he finds his circumscribed cubicle that must contain his belongings. The students must not keep food that does not subscribe to ridiculous rules. The new students must not move slowly. Rowntree (Robert Swann), the Head Whip, tells them to “run in the corridors,” to meet the time restraints of their tasks. Also, haircuts must meet certain requirements. The film was made in the ‘60’s when long hair was considered an act of defiance.

When Mick (Malcolm McDowell in his film debut) arrives, he has a scarf over his mouth and nose. He looks like a bandit, and it fits his outlaw-like personality. He is actually hiding a mustache, a forbidden form of appearance. Stephans (Guy Ross) says, referring to Mick, “God, it’s Guy Fawkes back again.” The reference to the British revolutionary is a foreshadowing here. Mick says he grew the mustache to “hide his sins.” Actually, it seems to reflect his inner lawbreaking self, and when he shaves it now, it may imply that the bare face is a pretense to conformity. He shares what he did during the summer with his friend Johnny (David Wood), telling him he spent time with a girl frequenting pubs. It seems that he enjoys living a rowdy life and when a bell rings, he wants to know when they get “to live,” instead of enduring regimentation.

The students gather in a hall and are told that they should “work,” and “play,” but “don’t mix the two.” I guess these students aren’t supposed to whistle while they work. They are urged to see themselves as a family, which as it turns out is quite dysfunctional. Those in charge believe “discipline” will contribute to helping the entire school which, in turn, will help each individual. Sounds good in a speech, but in practice, the result is not what is hoped for.

Rowntree is a sadist who relishes his power over the others. He threatens them if they repeat the prior year’s slackness, and reminds them that they are restricted from going into the nearby town. Bells sound before each activity, used almost like a Pavlovian type of behavior modification. What follows is a humiliating inspection for venereal disease. The boys must drop their trousers and the matron (Mona Washbourne) inspects their genitals with a flashlight.

The dormitory inspection ranks with what the U. S. Marines must endure. The Whips go to each room and the students must be in their beds. Jute can’t even keep his diary there, but must leave it in the sweat room, such is the absurd strictness of the institution. There is “lights out” ridiculously early and “no talking.” After the Whips leave, Mick sarcastically applauds and tells Stephans what a good job he has done, mimicking the Whip’s compliment. Mick’s pals echo Mick, and one says, “One night we’re gonna massacre you, Stephans. I’ll do it for free.” At the time it sounds like an exaggerated schoolboy threat, but it turns out to be more foreshadowing.

There is more religious singing which is offset by the students complaining about the denial of access to girls at another school. The more the institution denies these youths adequate freedom, the more irreverent they become. The history teacher (Graham Crowden) introduces a bit of unorthodox behavior as he rides his bike into the classroom while singing a traditional song, undermining the lyrics. He also opens the windows as if to let fresh ideas enter the minds of the students as he questions them about their ideas. Perhaps his actions suggest that history offers a basis to question the present. However, the film also depicts the corruption of power by showing the geometry teacher, who is also the chaplain (Geoffrey Chater), as someone who preaches proper behavior while hitting students and otherwise manhandling them. There is a stark contrast as he teaches geometric rules while breaking those of human decency. The Headmaster (Peter Jeffrey), while teaching a class, acknowledges that some of Britain’s rules are “silly,” but necessary, nonetheless. However, he does not provide an adequate defense of the statement. He goes on to say that “Britain today is a powerhouse of ideas, experiment, imagination.” He says that the schools must “meet” the “challenge” of dealing with all the changes that are occurring.

But the Headmaster has an idealistic approach to his job, calling it “exciting.” The school is entrenched in regimented behaviors that are anything but adrenalin inducing. What follows his speech is an indoctrination of Jute to learn, in addition to his regular studies, all the jargon and slang that Rowntree requires. That perversion of education includes misogyny, as the Head Whip wants town girls to be called “tarts.” Brunning (Michael Newport), a fellow student, tells Jute that, “it’s not just a matter of knowing the answers. It’s how you say it.” If he fails then they all “get beaten.” Such is the extreme nature of how power can corrupt a child’s school life.

Mick has pictures of soldiers plastered all over his room, and is cutting out photos of ferocious animals, including lions. IMDb points out that there are also pictures of Che Guevara and Geronimo who represent icons of revolution. Later Mick’s tendency toward violence becomes manifest as the means not only to create revolt against oppression but as an end in itself. Despite the desire of the school to clamp down on unacceptable behavior, or maybe because of it due to modeling or as a need to release their frustration with containment, students act sadistically toward other classmates. For example, a group of boys grab Biles (Brian Pettifer) and dunk his head in a toilet.

Denson (Hugh Thomas) chastises his fellow Whips for their “homosexual” remarks about the scums. Given the power arrangement it is more like sexual abuse. Rowntree calls in the nice-looking blonde underclassman Philips (Rupert Webster) to tempt Denson, trying to show that he isn’t as upright as he pretends. Rowntree is right because when he assigns Philips to be Denson’s servant, the latter does not object. The move is trying to show the falseness of the surface integrity of those in charge.

While with his pals, Mick says, “the world will end very soon.” He adds, “There is no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts … War is the last possible creative act.” He is an anarchist with an apocalyptic vision that seems to say that society is corrupt beyond redemption and must be purged. Wallace (Richard Warwick) complains about going bald, having bad breath, and concerned about becoming senile before he gets out of the institution. He says that his “body is rotting.” His comments add a sense of urgency to break free of the school’s dominance. Mick’s response to Johnny reading the newspaper headline that a person in Calcutta dies of starvation every eight minutes is that “eight minutes is a long time.” His remark heightens the desire to rush into action. When he is presented a picture of a beautiful naked young woman Mick says the only thing you can do with her is make love in the sea and then die. This is one dark fellow who seems to find joy in the moment followed by oblivion. Later, Mick and his pals do some fencing and Mick is ecstatic as he yells “War” and is almost orgasmic when he sees his own blood on his hand from a wound. (Mick seems to have some qualities of McDowell’s character in the later A Clockwork Orange).

Mick hears someone approaching and the young men hide their vodka (a reference to the Russian revolution?) and pornography, assuming the phony upright appearance of what is expected of them. Denson enters and although he suspects transgressions, he can’t prove anything. He still says they will take cold showers for their long hair. It’s as if he must exert some form of punishment as part of his position. Mick does provide one visible act of nonconformity, wearing a necklace of teeth that Denson notes still have blood on them. The image adds to the animal ferocity bubbling beneath the surface of Mick. Denson makes Mick spend a sustained amount of time in the cold shower the next morning, which, instead of cooling Mick down, only inflames his anger.

Mick and friends sit next to the soft-spoken Mrs. Kemp (Mary Macleod), the wife of the House Master of Mick’s dorm, Mr. Kemp (Arthur Lowe). As the boys ask if she wants anything, such as ketchup, with her meal, Mick adds his element of perverse violence by asking if she wants some “Dead man’s leg.” Mrs. Kemp touches her bare throat and the edge of her clothes in a sort of combination of worrying about modesty and experiencing sensuality.

Mick and Johnny escape to the town in defiance of the prohibition against going there and cavort playfully on the sidewalk as they enjoy their freedom. Mick then steals a motorcycle (a car would be too tame) and he and Johnny ride off into the countryside (a precursor to Easy Rider?). They arrive at a restaurant where they are served coffee by a pretty waitress. Mick, fittingly, stresses that he wants his coffee “black.” Then he contrarily dumps a ton of sugar into the cup just to be extreme. He grabs the girl and kisses her. She responds with a slap. This type of male abusiveness is abhorrent, but Mick has found a connection with this young lady. She touches his shoulder as he plays music on the juke box. She tells him it’s okay to look at her body but also says she’ll “kill” him. She says when she looks in the mirror her eyes get large like a tiger and she says, “I like tigers,” and growls at him. He sniffs at her and they act like snarling animals. This type of ferocity is a call to the wild for Mick. The scene abruptly shifts surrealistically to the two grappling on the ground clawing and baring their teeth, naked and making love. (There is a shift here from color to black and white. IMDb notes that economics and technicalities forced Anderson to sometimes shoot in monochrome. However, he then liked that the shifts added a sense of disorientation and movement back and forth between reality and fantasy. The style is consistent with the feeling that the status quo is being disrupted by Mick. Also, the title of the film is If… which suggest a possibility, not a reality. Usually when a work of art calls attention to itself as not realistic it implies that the art form is presenting a fiction that points to aspects of reality).

Philips watches as Wallace practices his routine on a parallel bar and it is a sweetly erotic scene slowed down slightly that allows the audience to marvel at the interaction between the athlete and the observer. The two become close and they share a prohibited smoke together. They are in the armory room that is filled with rifles, a surrounding full of danger if there ever was one. Philips says he wants to be a criminal lawyer, which shows he wants to argue cases against the establishment and points to his anti-authoritarian stance. He says that it will take him twenty years to reach his goal. Wallace says ominously that they’ll be dead by then. Philips accuses Wallace of having no ambition, and Wallace agrees. He is a follower of Mick, which means living only in the moment. We later find the two of them in bed together, which is consensual and out of caring as opposed to the exploitative way the Whips viewed Philip.

Mick is so obsessed with death that he practices his own demise, putting a bag over his head as Johnny times him to see how long he can last without running out of air. Mick wonders what’s the worse way to die, and he, Johnny, and Wallace suggest different ways. Johnny says cancer is bad because his mother endured six months of suffering before the end came. He seems upset by this fact, but Mick shows morbid fascination about how nasty death can be, which shows how pathologically dangerous he is. He even comments that “the night’s dead,” which indicates how he sees lifelessness in everything.

Led by Rowntree, the Whips control Mr. Kemp and get him to allow them to administer strict discipline to those in his dormitory who they see as trying to rock the boat, even if their brutal actions turn the ship into the Titanic. After singing their religious songs the students can indulge themselves in some dessert. But, the deceptively sedate Mrs. Kemp comes down hard on one lad as she yells that he was trying to pick up another bun. She does not want the boys to indulge their appetites.

The Whips call Mick, Johnny, and Wallace into their office. They say they will be punished for being a “nuisance,” and having an “attitude.” Denson criticizes Mick for his “slouching about,” with his hands in his pockets. These so-called offenses present no real harm. Rowntree says that Mick and his mates “have become a danger to the morale of the whole house.” Talk about the crackpot calling the kettle black. Rowntree wants to make an example of the three to ward off anyone who might follow in Mick’s off-road footsteps. Mick’s sharp retaliation is, “The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca Cola to your scum and your best teddy bear to Oxfam and expect the rest of us to lick your frigid fingers the rest of your frigid life.” He is attacking Rowntree, and the other privileged members of society, who give crumbs off their table to those deserving souls who need compassion and then expect to be praised for their minimal generosity.

The Whips take the boys to the gym and administer a “caning” punishment. The Whips live up to their name as Rowntree whacks the boys viciously on the buttocks with a slender cane that cause bleeding. Wallace and Johnny receive four lashes each, which we do not see, but only hear the slamming of the cane. After enduring this vicious infliction, the boys must humiliate themselves by shaking Rowntree’s hand and saying, “thank you.” Mick, however, as the ringleader, gets ten lashes, and we do witness this brutal punishment as Rowntree runs up to the bent over Mick so that he can maximize the impact of the beating. The other boys in the school can hear the punishment. One is looking at germs under a microscope, which seems to symbolize how cruelty is like a dangerous virus that spreads when allowed to exist.

While the other students celebrate the winning of a trophy and cheer College House, Mick, in contrast, is alone in his room as he loads a paint gun and shoots at pictures on the wall of British celebrities and even of the Houses of Parliament. His defacing of all things famously English shows his scorn and violence toward the establishment in power. He takes a blood oath with Johnny and Wallace by saying the words, “Death to the oppressor.” The spilling of blood seems to be what intrigues Mick as it appears to represent to him the ultimate example of nonconformist behavior. He says, “One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.” Mick presents them with “real bullets.” He is talking about assassination of tyrants. However, negative results, can result from a bullet such as in the killings of Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the Kennedys.

There are scenes which illustrate how people acting pious in public hypocritically indulge in socially inappropriate behavior in private. While Mr. Kemp sings in his bedroom about love and mentions Venus, the goddess of that emotion, and his wife plays the recorder, the school’s matron reacts by becoming sexually aroused. The shot of the bedroom shows husband and wife have separate beds, suggesting an abstinence of sexual activity whose suppression can manifest itself in objectionable ways. Later, Mrs. Kemp walks naked through the student residence as the boys are outside, and touches soap and towels. Again, that sexual suppression finds a way to the surface in an inappropriate manner.

The next section, called “Forth to War,” begins with the chaplain giving an onward Christian soldiers speech, framing devotion to peace-loving Jesus ironically as a call to arms. The students are dressed as soldiers and march as if going off to war. They proceed to engage in war games where they practice “the yell of hate.”  Not quite what Christ intended. This melding of religion and combat gives spiritual justification to violence and sends a message to the students that backfires (gun reference intended). Mick uses real ammunition to fire close to the students and the chaplain, who, despite the call for bravery earlier, now cowers on the ground when he actually faces danger.

The Headmaster tells Mick, Johnny, and Wallace about how the reverend could have been hurt. As he says these words, a bit of surrealism occurs. The Headmaster opens a large drawer in which the chaplain is stretched out as if resting in a coffin. He then rises and shakes the hands of the three students as a sign of accepting their apologies. Again, Anderson is jarring the audience out of the comfort of a standard narrative to show that their status quo is under siege. The Headmaster then says that although he knows that acts of youthful individualism are to be expected, there are limits to that expression. However, he then gets petty about the limitations, focusing on hair length. He spouts the platitude that “Those who are given the most also have the most to give.” However, this statement is not about generosity being disbursed to the needy. Instead, he assigns the boys manual labor as a way of “giving” back to the school and they must clean out the church basement.

Philips joins them, and one object they find during their chore is a stuffed alligator. It could be that the dangerous animal symbolizes what evil can lurk below the surface of a benign exterior. Ditto the deformed fetus they discover in a locked cabinet. The waitress suddenly appears in this scene, another bit of taking us out of the normal course of the narrative. Together they find a large supply of military weapons, including mortars, hand grenades, and various types of guns. The grinning Mick tells us without words what he plans to do with these destructive tools.

The next section is called “Crusaders,” which calls to mind the combatants of the Middle Ages whose wartime exploits were blessed with religious justification. That merging of religion and war is emphasized at a school assembly on Founders Day where parents and dignitaries assemble. General Denson (Anthony Nicolls) and a church bishop are in attendance. The general, most likely the father of the student of the same name, goes on about how some are belittling traditional rules and obedience, and that they must defend those qualities to preserve freedom. What his words imply contradictorily is that one must give up freedom to hold onto it. He then adds the need for warlike actions to preserve liberty. That justification for violence can be used by others who feel that their freedom is being deprived by those in power. That interpretation can encourage insurrection.

Cue the new “crusaders” who start a fire under the auditorium (reminiscent of Guy Fawke’s history) and the smoke causes those assembled to cough and flee from the gathering. As those in attendance emerge outside Mick and his followers open fire from the roof onto the people below. Those on the ground acquire weapons from the school armory and fire back. The Headmaster urges a ceasefire, but it is too late for peace. Mick’s girlfriend takes a pistol and shoots the Headmaster through the forehead.

The film ends with a closeup of Mick firing his machine gun directly at the camera as if telling the audience they better fix things or this story might turn into real life. His image is followed by a dark screen with the word “If …” painted in blood red. The movie has delivered its warning shot.

The next film is Angel Heart.

A Hard Day's Night

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Roger Ebert notes in his book, The Great Movies, that A Hard Day’s Night (1964), “was in a different category from rock musicals that had starred Elvis and his imitators.” Indeed, those earlier films did not offer much more than a way to showcase their musical stars playing and singing their songs. But this Richard Lester directed movie, from a script written by Alun Owen, uses witty, surreal dialogue and situations that has The Beatles mirror the anarchic freedom of The Marx Brothers. 

 

Ebert notes that the black-and-white photography provides a “semi-documentary style” as the film follows a day in the life of the famous quartet as they evade zealous fans, rebel against those who would contain them, and eventually perform at a concert. As Ebert says, the film does not follow standard filmmaking procedures, and instead uses handheld cameras and quick cutting that make it appear as if the shots were “snatched during moments of real life.” But that realistic look is in ironic contrast to the absurd antics of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. 

 

The title of the film came from Ringo who was describing how rest was needed after a trying day being The Beatles. But it is writer Owen who created “stereotyped” versions of the band members, according to IMDb, after observing them on tour. He depicted Paul as “cute” and “sensible,” John as the “smart-ass,” George as “quiet and shy,” and Ringo as “dim-witted and sad.” In real life, the personalities of these individual musicians were more complex, so the film is a fictional version of the factual people. Larry David does the same thing in Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

 

The opening sequence, with the lively title track playing in the background, is one of movement. John, George and Ringo are fleeing from the adoring female fans. They run, jump, and ride to get away. Only Paul, in disguise with a beard and mustache sits still because he is with his grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) on a bench. (IMDb notes that Paul was indisposed for a while because of a car accident, and William Shears was used as a stand-in. In Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul sings an introduction to the “one and only Billy Shears”). But they all meet up at a station to go on a train, another moving object. This sequence conveys youthful energy, but also a sense that the musical celebrities find it difficult to obtain that sense of liberation. Indeed, when they are not moving they are in confined areas, such as rooms, cars, and train compartments that symbolize how their fame, although allowing them monetary gain and the ability to express their musical abilities, also limited them as individuals.

 

On the train there is the first of many references to Paul’s grandfather being “very clean.” According to IMDb, the phrase is a reverse reference to actor Brambell’s role in a British TV series entitled “Steptoe and Son” (which was the inspiration for the American show “Sanford and Son”), where Brambell’s character was called a “dirty old man.” John says that they will probably have to look after the old man, but his response is, “I look after meself.” His attitude is unexpected since one would expect the old man to be a conservative type. But the script defies expectations, and Grandfather likes to get into mischief and is a rebel. Paul calls him “a villain, a real mixer.” Paul adds his grandfather, “costs you a fortune in breach-of-promise cases.” That type of dialogue is funny because it sounds formal coming from blokes who came off the streets of Liverpool. 

 

Shake (John Junkin) and Norm (Norman Rossington), the group's handlers, show up, and Norm immediately wants to put restrictions on the four, saying “let's not cause any trouble.” After Grandfather goes with Shake and Norm for some coffee, a proper looking middle-aged gentleman (Richard Vernon) enters the compartment. The long-haired boys seem to be an existential annoyance to the conservative man, as he views them with suspicion. He immediately tries to control the situation by closing the window (metaphorically implying he does not want fresh ways of thinking to be in his presence). Paul wants the window open, and John points out that the majority there doesn’t want it closed, stressing democracy. But the older fellow argues he has sway because he has been around longer, basically arguing that age outranks youth. He doesn’t want them playing rock music on Ringo’s radio, either. He says he “fought the war for your sort,” and Ringo’s funny response is, “I bet you’re sorry you won,” since the man is so hostile toward those he protected. The Marx Brothers influence at playing with language can be heard when the traveler says, “I shall call the guard,” and Paul says, “Ah, but what?” That response is followed by an absurd shot of the boys outside the train with a bicycle running alongside the man’s window, stressing that he is treating them like little children. 

 

The Beatles join Shake, Norm, and Grandfather in the dining car. Norm and Shake are arguing over the ridiculous point that Shake is acting taller than Norm. Paul discovers that it’s his grandfather that instigated the conflict, even though the two men never argue. Paul says that Grandfather doesn’t like “unity.” He’s being depicted as an anarchist, just the opposite of the elderly man in the compartment. Grandfather creates more chaos when young girls enter the car. Paul makes a move on them for himself and the others, but then Grandfather says the young men are convicts and the females should flee. In a way, The Beatles were guilty of defying conventional norms. 

 

Grandfather is unaccounted for, and when asked, John’s nutty comment is that he concealed him about his “person.” It adds to the film’s attack on conventional rationality. Ringo admits to George that he has an inferiority complex, and he plays drums because it’s his, “active compensatory factor.” Here we have more of that out-of-place language that sounds like curbside psychology, which the script is satirizing. John bursts into a compartment that has young girls and asks for a file to free him of supposed handcuffs, carrying on the theme of being in a confining state due to his celebrity status.

 

Paul and John find Grandfather with a much younger woman. He says he is engaged, another ridiculous moment. The next shot is Grandfather in a cage in the storage part of the train, looking like his free spirit has been imprisoned. But, the Beatles join him, so they, too, are confined by their own fame, as girls show up outside the barrier. We then have the artifice of the movie undermining the documentary feel, as the quartet plays “I Should Have Known Better,” when they are only supposed to be playing cards. 

 

The “surging” girls are waiting for them at the train station (John asks if he could be “surged,” which again echoes the Marx Brothers’ love of wordplay and also shows the plus side of being a rock star). More physical fleeing takes place suggesting an attempt to escape the suffocation of fame. Shake has to carry the band’s instruments because The Beatles don’t have the luxury of privacy to bring their own. But, for that sacrifice of privacy, they do experience adoration and the freedom to have others do work for them. The film shows the two sides of success. 

 

Ringo gets an invitation to go to a fancy club, but Norm, trying to control the band’s members so that they don’t become a publicity embarrassment, denies Ringo the opportunity to go. Grandfather steals the invitation, and even though he openly discourages attendance there, he likes the idea of being at a place that has “easy money and fast women.” Norm wants the band to stay in the hotel and answer their fan mail. After Norm leaves, John grabs his jacket to go out, which is his defiant response to being told to stay put, and they go out dancing to their own recorded music. Grandfather, exercising his own rebelliousness, goes gambling at the club. When he goes broke, he unscrupulously pretends to be a waiter and gets a large tip from a patron so he can continue to bet. There is a shot at the dance club that has a young woman resting her booted foot on the hand of a companion as John sits at the table. In Howard Hampton’s essay, “The Whole World is Watching,” this brief image conveys, “the way the cool and wry and fetishistic are all folded into everyday conversation, ordinary life.” It’s a hint of how The Beatles are in the vanguard of “a transformed social world that's being sculpted before your eyes.” However, Norm (an appropriate name for someone who wants things to adhere to the “norms” of behavior so that things appear to be “normal”), shows up and wants The Beatles to leave. 

 

Norm gets the lads back to the hotel to do the chore of answering their mail. But, they find the butler whose clothes Grandfather took to go to the fancy club, and they use that excuse to break away once more to find the old man. They get into the exclusive club because they are, after all, The Beatles, so celebrity has its privileges. Shake gets into the exclusive club by saying he’s “Ringo’s sister,” so absurdity keeps surfacing in the film.

 

The next scene has John enjoying himself as he plays like a child unencumbered by adult restrictions while taking a bath. He pretends he is a German U-Boat commander. As he sings, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the sea,” he then has one boat bash another, a sort of satiric jab at England’s imperialism. As IMDb points out, John holds a toy submarine and shouts out “Help!” which predicts the subsequent Beatles movies, Help! And Yellow Submarine. When Norm again tries to manage John by telling him to get out of the bathtub, he pulls the stopper, but only John’s hat and the toy submarine remain after the water drains. John walks in harassing Norm to stop fooling around. It’s an absurdist reversal of their roles. 

 

The band rides to a press conference at the theater where they will perform. When they exit the car they go through a homeless person’s tent and the screaming female fans knock the shelter away, leaving the poor man without his covering. The shot seems to stress how all this fame and money contrasts with the poor people who are left behind in the capitalistic rat race. 

 

When the musicians enter the reception room, Norm continues his restrictive role by trying to curtail the band’s efforts to indulge in any alcoholic beverages. The film also makes fun of the same tired questions that reporters ask The Beatles. Commenting supposedly about the size of Ringo’s nose, John says, “I never noticed his nose till about six months ago.” When asked how he found “America,” John’s sarcastic response is, “Turn left at Greenland.” When confronted with the extremely obvious question, “Has success changed your life,” George does not dignify the question as he simply says, “Yes.” When asked what he calls the hairstyle he has, George says, “Arthur,” again playing with language. When an interviewer wants to know with whom Ringo identifies between the two warring youthful factions in England at the time, the “mods” or the “rockers,” Ringo’s famous line is “I’m a mocker.” The response shows how he makes fun of the question and the conflicting parties, but also how he implies the best way to resolve differences is through unification. Paul has to keep saying that he is just “good friends” with all the suggestions of romantic connections, which shows how he must publicly comment on all his private social activities. Despite the supposedly factual presentation of the narrative, there are references to the mothers of John and Paul, who, in fact, were deceased at the time of the filming. So, the movie is playing with fact versus fiction.  

 

As the group goes to the stage for rehearsal, one of the crew taps on Ringo’s symbols, which upsets his sense of musical jurisdiction. George says Ringo is very fussy about his drums because “they loom large in his legend.” It’s another instance of exaggerated word usage to poke fun at the group’s own fame. Even after they perform a perfect version of “If I Fell,” the band receives flak from a snobby TV director (Victor Spinetti), another uppity older person wanting to control them after being urged on by that “mixer,” Grandfather McCartney. 

 Norm wants to lock them away until the performance, but of course they get out through the fire escape as the energetic “Can’t Buy Me Love” plays. What follows is a frenetic rambling by the four as they luxuriate in their freedom in a sports field. The shots from above emphasize the extent of the open-air lack of restrictions. The use of fast-action and slow-motion camera work adds to the playful kinetic liberation. As soon as the song is done, another old-timer enters trying to ground their flight to freedom, saying the area is private property and therefore off-limits.

 George accidentally passes by an office where people in the fashion industry work. They think his look is close enough to a real Beatle that they can use him to sell their goods. Exploitation of The Beatles brand is what is suggested here, with the company employees not able to recognize genuine talent from imitators. George describes certain shirts as “grotty,” which means grotesque. IMDb says the clothing is similar to what the Dave Clark Five wore, the inferior band that followed The Beatles in what was known in the recording industry as “The British Invasion.” The fashion executive says that no matter how “grotty” it appears, the corporate world will make kids want it or else the youths will feel diminished in the eyes of their peers. He says the new trend will be “to care passionately and be right wing.” It’s a sort of indoctrination to gain control, and the individualistic George wants nothing to do with it. He says that their “trendsetter” female spokesperson is a “drag” and people make fun of her. George is thrown out because the fashion boss only wants affirmation of his preconceived views.

 

When the band members return to their ready room, they are again chastised by Norm for wandering off. John gets on his knees and jokingly begs not to be “caned,” for being “led astray,” a jab at the English boarding school system that overreacted by using corporal punishment if a boy broke the rules. The tailor is measuring Paul who walks away, and John cuts the tape measure and mocks the Queen by using a high-pitched voice, saying, “I now declare this bridge open.” It’s another bit of rebellious humor that pokes fun at the reigning establishment. 

 

They get more disapproving and controlling static from the Director because the band isn’t on time to practice another tune and he wants them not to move “out of position” once they take the stage. They make fun of his sweater, saying he probably doesn't have a wife because he has such bad taste in clothes. Paul says that the Director’s assistant probably knitted the sweater for him, and then John says, “She knitted him.” It’s a damning line, associating the man in authority with an old-fashioned practice because he can’t keep pace with how the world is changing. 

 

After a marvelous rendition of “And I Love Her,” they go to the makeup room to make fun of the established order. Ringo is under a dryer as he wears the hairy headgear of a Buckingham Palace guard while he reads a magazine entitled The Queen as John points out that it’s an “in-joke.” Paul drapes a protective shroud around him like a classical actor and mockingly quotes from Hamlet as he says, “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt.” John sports a beard and satirizes a proper gentleman as he mentions shopping at the famous British luxury department store, Harrods, which is situated where “you turn right at the corridor and past the fireplace.” Before going back on stage, John does some exaggerated dance moves to jokingly comment on the traditional way some dancers are performing their rehearsal. Everything about this movie is iconoclastic.

 

After another song, Norm wants the band to stay put at the theater, but John and Paul are as defiant as ever, and go off with a couple of girls. Norm assigns Ringo to look after Paul’s grandfather, who continues to stir up trouble by harassing Ringo about reading a book instead of going out in the world and living it up. Grandfather keeps playing the part of rulebreaker, as he critiques traditional scholarly pursuits. But he also exploits the teasing Ringo receives from the other Beatles, saying they are taking advantage of his “good nature.” He convinces Ringo to go “parading,” and Ringo takes off right before the show, causing the others to attempt to retrieve him. 

 As Ringo walks about, two girls recognize him and he escapes into a shop where he puts on a coat and hat so he can’t be recognized. Disguised, he then approaches a girl who calls him “shorty” and dismisses him. As an abstract celebrity he is pursued, but as himself, he is rejected, which is a cynical comment on the nature of fame. He tries to take what we now call a selfie by mounting his camera on a rock. When he uses an extension cord to trip the shutter, the camera shoots off into the river. It’s the kind of loser gag Woody Allen will later put to good use. When Ringo chucks a large brick into the river, a cop rides by on a bicycle and reprimands Ringo. It’s another example of too much control being exerted. But then Ringo becomes the old guard when a young boy (David Janson) rolls a tire and Ringo trips on it. The Beatles’ drummer then tells the boy he is causing trouble. The youth has skipped school as part of his rebelliousness. Ringo discovers the boy has three friends (just like Ringo) who also are playing hooky, and Ringo says he, too, is a “deserter.” So, Ringo sees some of himself in the young boy. 

 Ringo continues to play the screenwriter’s lame character as he has to pay for stale food and disrupts men playing some pub games. He even gets his glass of beer smashed by putting it down in the wrong place. He almost hits a parrot with a dart and spears a patron’s sandwich. He’s seen as a “troublemaker” and when he gets thrown out of the pub and kicks some trash onto the street, a policeman is there, of course, sternly observing these minor infractions. But when Ringo tries to be chivalrous by putting his coat over puddles of water for a woman to walk over, he accidentally has her fall into a manhole. Luckily, there is a worker who breaks her fall, but it’s enough for the cop to arrest Ringo.

 

Meanwhile, Grandfather forged the signatures of the bandmates on a bunch of Beatles photos and tries to pass them off as genuine to the crowd in front of the theater. After causing a commotion, he too is arrested. He rants about police brutality and kicks the policemen at the station. He says he is “a soldier of the Republic,” which IMDb notes refers to the I.R.A. So, Grandfather is associated with a radical group of Irishmen who fought against British dominance. We therefore have more insurrectionist references. The police say they just tried to protect him from the mob of girls, but Grandfather runs off, just like the band members were doing. 

 

After Grandfather sneaks into the theater and tells John, Paul, and George that Ringo is at the police station, the film has a modern version of a wacky Keystone Cops segment as the officers and the musicians run about while the appropriately fast-paced “Can’t Buy Me Love” plays. While the cops chase the four young men, they overlook a thief trying to break into a car, stressing the authorities lack of fair law enforcement, as one oblivious cop uses the crook in the stolen auto to chase the quartet.

 

The film ends with a concert that showcases what The Beatles do best, play their songs. The music and harmonies are wonderful, and their compositions continued to evolve into greatness. The uninhibited fans show that they allowed no restraints to be placed upon this younger generation. After the concert the band members are running again, as they did at the onset of the movie, refusing to be contained. They fly off on a helicopter, symbolizing their deserved place among the musical heavens.

The next film is Whose Life Is It Anyway?