The Lord of the Rings wasn't the only
movie featuring The Beatles that never happened. Very early in their career, the group signed a three-movie deal with
United Artists as a way to get increased publicity, with
A Hard Day's Night (
1964) and
Help! (
1965) being completed in short time. An early contender for their third film was
a western comedy. Going quite a different direction was a "
morbid and dull" work called
Up Against It, seen by others as dated satire that read "
like a rather mediocre early [Monty] Python movie." Continue on in for more ephemera from other
rejected film projects by The Beatles.
In 1963, The Beatles were offered a cameo role in
The Yellow Teddybears (also titled
Gutter Girls). The risque nature of the film was a bit much for the Fab Four's image, and they didn't take part in the movie.
The first real contender for The Beatles third film was based on a novel called
A Talent for Loving; or, The Great Cowboy Race, by
Richard Condon. The group's manager,
Brian Epstein,
bought the film rights, but the group couldn't agree on the script, and the project was scrapped. The film was finally made
in 1969, also titled Gun Crazy, starring
Richard Widmark (obit
prev.),
(Chaim) Topol and
Geneviève Page.
There was
a brief chance the Fab Four would work with Disney on the animated version of
The Jungle Book, complete with appearance by animated counterparts of The Beatles and some original tunes. Following the
The Beatles cartoon series (
intro, and Beatles-ish cartoon animals in a commercial), which included little involvement of the group, beyond
use of their songs, the group wasn't so key on the project. In the end, there was no collaboration, but
some singing, mop-topped vultures with vaguely British accents appeared in the film.
Another possible comedic film was an adaptation of The Three Musketeers, with rumors of
Beatles'-favorite Brigitte Bardot as Lady De Winter. By this time, there had been
a number of film adaptations, and a version with The Beatles never happened (though
there were four muskateers in the cartoon series).
Richard Lester, who had directed the first two Beatles films, would go on to direct 3 Three Muskateers-based films, in
1973,
1974, and
1989.
Veering sharply from the image of an adorable group of mop-tops, The Beatles (who still hadn't filmed their required third film), looked to be involved with more mature works. One possibility was a movie to be directed by the man behind
Blow-Up,
Michelangelo Antonioni.
Owen Holder wrote the script, eventually titled Shades of a Personality, in which John would play a man with a split personality; those entities would be portrayed by Paul, George, and Ringo. Joe Orton was called upon to revise the script, and either adapted one of his early novels (
The Silver Bucket) and added elements of another (which would become
Head To Toe in
1971), or
re-wrote the Holder's script from top to bottom. However it happened, the resulting script was titled
Up Against It.
Orton was big in the London theater world at the time, and
McCartney was a fan of Orton's play
Loot. Orton
didn't have high hopes for the film, and he was correct - it was never made by The Beatles. But
Up Against It was performed in 1989, with a
less than glowing review (login req, or
search for Up Against It review). Part might be due to a soundtrack by Todd Rundgren ("
a Broadway kind of guy"). Rundgren's music was
released in Japan (and a few tracks are on YouTube:
1,
2,
3). Even reactions from fans was mixed ("
an album with rich potential unfortunately unrealised and possibly for completists only" versus "
It's most definitely a musical.... But it's Todd, too, so it rocks, at least in places").
Joe Orton died in 1967, well before
Up Against It was performed.
Brian Epstein died less than a month after Orton, never to see The Beatles movie contract completed.
Neither
Magical Mystery Tour nor
Yellow Submarine counted towards the United Artists contract. It wasn't until 1970 with the release of
Let It Be that The Beatles fulfilled their contract, capturing the end of The Beatles, including their last public performance:
part 1,
2, and
3.
If you've stuck around this long, here's some bonus material:
A Hard Day's Night:
part 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8, and
9
Help!:
part 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8, and
9
Magical Mystery Tour:
playlist
Yellow Submarine:
part 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9, and
10
Let It Be:
playlist, with Anthology
Bonus bonus:
Beatles cartoon playlist.
Additional bonus bonus: The Beatles on Doctor Who. (Don't go looking for it on your American DVDs of "The Chase" as the scene has been excised.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:06 PM on January 22, 2011 [1 favorite]