Help!

“So these are the famous Beatles,” says one of the manyBritish stiff-upper-lip types in Help!, their second go-round with director RichardLester. This ’65 effort concerns the Fab Four on the run from pug-faced LeoMcKern, who is a kind of Indian spiritual leader with a Cockney accent, eagerto get Ringo’s holy mood ring. Watching Help! makes one marvel at thecomplexity that was the Beatles—here they’re fresh-faced youngsters eagerto tell an incomprehensible joke, race through the London streets, and sing asong. But in just four years they’d become bearded, justifiably frustrated andangry with themselves and the world, and still creating the incredible popsongs that would move the world.