Holy Bee of Ephesus

Imagine if a musician chose the discordant throwaway “Only A Northern Song” as the pinnacle of the Beatles’ output, and used it as a template for the entire sonic palette of their own work for years. You’d probably get a musician very similar to Frank Zappa. (In reality, Zappa’s approach was a combination of his affinity for ‘50s R&B combined with modernist composers like Edgard Varese, but the results were more or less the same.)  

Frank Zappa

I never much liked Frank Zappa. I suppose there’s a twisted appeal to listening to someone using immense talent for the purposes of coming off as a second-rate novelty act, but I don’t get it. His general approach, at least on his rock albums with his backing band, the Mothers of Invention, is to combine heavy-handed social satire with an incredibly sophomoric sense of humor. (His work in modern classical and jazz is beyond my scope to comment on.) The best parody/pastiche comes from having an affection for the original material, and Zappa always came off as contemptuous of ‘60s rock. In fact, “arrogant contempt” seems to be his default mode for most things, and that’s one of the reasons his humor falls flat.

Admittedly, Zappa’s arrangements were tight. The musicians he assembled could always hold down a solid groove, and his guitar playing was often incendiary, but the material was undercut by the jokey vocals, dumb spoken-word monologues, sub-Spike Jones sound effects, and inane lyrics that veered between juvenile sex jokes, scatology, and pretensions of cultural relevance. Many of the “tracks” on his albums are useless little fragments. If you want to sit through twenty-six seconds of whispering and backwards tapes titled “Hot Poop,” more power to you. I’ll pass. (Yes, I know in this context “poop” means “gossip,” but don’t tell me the writer of “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” wasn’t aware of the double meaning.)

The magic of the Beatles is their timelessness. Rob Sheffield explored this quality in his book Dreaming the Beatles (highly recommended), pointing out that for a long time, the Beatles themselves failed to grasp the immensity of their continuing appeal. Before their deaths, both Lennon and Harrison were frequently puzzled and annoyed that people refused to let the whole Beatles thing go. They waved it off as nostalgia. Well, you can’t be nostalgic for an era you never witnessed, and I’d wager millions of current hardcore Beatles fanatics were born after 1970. By now, Paul seems to get this. (Bless his heart, but peace-and-love-peace-and-love Ringo still seems to be pitching his endless stream of new albums and tours to a rapidly dying-off Boomer audience.) Frank Zappa is the opposite. He is so firmly of his time it’s as if he were preserved in amber. For years, Zappa remained locked in a greasy, confrontational “1968,” flying his increasingly pointless freak flag, and trying desperately to shock the “squares.” And when he finally updated his style, he decided to poke fun at disco and Valley girls, true Statements for the Ages. 

Zappa and his legion of fans would probably say I’m missing the point. And maybe I am. And if someone gave me the choice between listening to Zappa or the Grateful Dead for an afternoon, give me Zappa every time. At least I wouldn’t be falling asleep listening to an alleged “song” featuring Jerry Garcia elaborately playing scales for 25 minutes.

The kicker to all this? The Beatles loved Frank Zappa. 

Paul was overheard on the Sgt. Pepper session tapes proudly saying “This is our Freak Out!” (a reference to Zappa’s 1966 debut album). One of the handful of times John played live during his solo years is when he joined Zappa onstage at the Fillmore East in June of 1971. And Ringo took a role in Zappa’s 1971 film 200 Motels.

200 MOTELS

Released: October 29, 1971 (L.A.), November 10, 1971 (N.Y.)

Director: Frank Zappa, Tony Palmer

Producer: Herb Cohen, Jerry D. Good

Screenwriter: Frank Zappa, Tony Palmer

Studio: United Artists

Cast: Theodore Bikel, The Mothers (Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan, Aynsley Dunbar, George Duke, Ian Underwood, Martin Lickert, Jim Pons), Ringo Starr, Jimmy Carl Black, Don Preston, “Motorhead” Sherwood, Janet Neville-Ferguson, Lucy Offerall, Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood, Keith Moon, Dick Barber, Judy Gridley

Zappa had always dabbled in filmmaking. His short film, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, was aired on KQED in San Francisco in 1969, and he was constantly tinkering with his multi-media Uncle Meat project (the film portion of which would never be officially completed). His idea for 200 Motels — how life on the road as a touring band could drive you crazy — stemmed from the Mothers of Inventions’ very first tour in 1966. The vaunted Zappa originality would lie not in the premise (which was pretty trite even back then), but in the execution. He pieced together a score in bits and pieces over three years, and arranged to have it performed at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.

As an orchestral piece, 200 Motels had its debut performance on May 15, 1970, conducted by Zubin Mehta. The 96-piece Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra joined forces with Zappa’s nine-piece rock band in an acoustical and technical trainwreck. But the audacity was admired. The initial idea was to expand 200 Motels into a TV special for Dutch television. When Zappa brought in British director Tony Palmer to consult, Palmer demonstrated his pioneering video-to-35mm film transfer system which he’d used on his film of Cream’s farewell concert in 1968. Zappa decided to turn the project to a feature film, knowing that by using video he could shoot and edit quickly, and keep costs down. 

In November 1970, Zappa was about to leave on a European tour with an all-new Mothers band (the “of Invention” was mostly dropped, and they now featured former Turtles Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan on vocals). Just before his departure, he met with United Artists chief David Picker to arrange a film deal for 200 Motels. Based on thirty minutes of music, a ten-page treatment, and a few photos, United Artists agreed to fund the film in exchange for rights to the soundtrack album. Shepperton Studios just outside London was booked for early 1971. The European tour ended on December 17, and Zappa headed to England to get started on the project. Shepperton turned out to be unavailable due to Roman Polanski’s Macbeth running over schedule, so the production hastily shifted to another British studio, Pinewood. 

Ringo Starr was at that time in the depths of Beatles Break-Up misery. On December 31, 1970 Paul officially sued the other three Beatles to dissolve the band’s business partnership, a regrettable but necessary move. No one wants to go through a lawsuit, but Paul — correctly — did not want his finances managed by the criminal sleazebag (Allen Klein) the other three had naively hitched their wagons to, and he wanted out. Sometime just before or just after the lawsuit was filed, the phone rang at Round Hill, Ringo’s Highgate mansion. “A call came from the Apple office that Frank Zappa had this idea, and he wanted to present it to me,” recalled Ringo. “So, I invited Frank to my house. He laid this huge score out and said ‘I’ve got an idea to make this movie, and here’s the score.’ I said, ‘Why are you showing me the score? I can’t read music. But because of that I will do the movie.’” [That’s the quote, but I’m still not sure because of what.]

Tony Palmer agreed to co-direct, utilizing his video-to-film technique. Much of 200 Motels would be performance pieces by the Mothers and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The narrative segments would feature the Mothers (none of whom could really act, so they just improvised around Zappa’s written outlines), former Mothers, real-life groupies playing onscreen groupies, Ringo, and Who drummer Keith Moon (who, as we’ll see, pops up almost every time Ringo appears before a camera in anything). The lone professional hired for the project was veteran character actor Theodore Bikel.

Mothers bassist Jeff Simmons quit just before filming (or rather, taping) started, and an infuriated Zappa said he would give the part to the next person who walked in the room. The lucky winner was Ringo’s driver, Martin Lickert, who actually knew how to play bass guitar. Problem solved. (A weird story circulated that Zappa brought in Wilfrid Brambell — Paul’s “clean” grandfather from A Hard Day’s Night — put him in a long-haired wig and gave him a bass to hold. The near-elderly Brambell was completely bewildered and didn’t last long in the part.) Turtles bassist Jim Pons was also on hand, though his role was murky. (Both he and Lickert were officially credited as Mothers on the soundtrack album, and both did stints on tour with Zappa later in ’71.)

After six days’ rehearsal with the band and orchestra, shooting occurred from January 28 through February 5, 1971 on two Pinewood sound stages. Zappa directed the performers and played with the band, Elgar Howarth conducted the orchestra, and Palmer directed the four video cameras from a control center in an off-set truck. The music would be performed and recorded live on set, rather than the normal procedure of pre-taping and synching the soundtrack in post-production. Three of the orchestra members wanted nothing to do with the material, and quit after the first day’s rehearsal (maybe they shared a taxi home with Wilfred Brambell). The brief shots of the mostly middle-aged Royal Philharmonic members seen in the final film show them either as very uncomfortable, or as slightly bored-looking professionals getting through a gig they were booked for.

Although I used the term “narrative segments” in an earlier paragraph, there is no narrative as such. The whole thing takes place on a crappy, cardboard-looking set on an obvious sound stage (deliberately built to look like a crappy, cardboard-looking set on an obvious sound stage) representing “Centerville, USA” — a hellish limbo where the Mothers are stuck while on tour. There are some vague themes — the band waiting to get paid by the dictatorial Zappa, getting hassled by rednecks at the local diner, and an overall fixation on genetalia and groupies (both Zappa obsessions). But, really, no sense is to be made from any of it. 

“Within the conceptual framework of this filmic event, nothing really matters,” says Rance Muhammitz. “It is entirely possible for several subjective realities to co-exist. It is possible that all things are a deception of the senses.”

“Right on, Rance,” agrees (former) band member Don Preston. “The functioning of our senses has been spiritually impaired and chemically corrupted by the fake artificial food coloring.”

That bit of dialogue comes in the first eight minutes, and serves as an attempt to excuse the ninety interminable minutes that follow.

Here’s what we’re treated to: A KKK meeting with all the members singing a song called “Penis Dimension.” Keith Moon in drag as “the Hot Nun” trying to be a groupie. An incredibly overlong animated sequence created solely to lambast departed bassist Jeff Simmons. The band members randomly wrestling someone in a vacuum cleaner costume. Fish/lizard people wandering around. Another “nun” in a suit made of cardboard boxes. Dance routines that challenge the definition of both “dance” and “routine.” Did I mention all the stuff about groupies? (Janet Neville-Ferguson performs a number called “Half A Dozen Provocative Squats” — topless, of course — and Pamela Des Barres has a small part as a “rock journalist” in a leather Nazi SS uniform. Zappa always treated symbolism as a sledgehammer.) The whole thing is very meta, with participants addressing the audience and the mostly off-camera Zappa, making inside jokes about other bands and musicians, and commenting on the film’s strangeness.

As stated, the Mothers played themselves. They were joined by several members of the original Mothers line-up, who had all been unceremoniously fired by Zappa back in 1969. No hard feelings, I guess. Original drummer Jimmy Carl Black gives the best “performance” in the film, both as his straightforward, laconic self and as the “Lonesome Cowboy Burt” character. Theodore Bikel as “Rance Muhammitz” serves as a kind of master of ceremonies through the whole thing, but 200 Motels resists all attempts at structure. 

Zappa is only briefly glimpsed on screen during some of the performance sequences. Standing in for him in the other portions of the film is Ringo, playing “Larry the Dwarf,” who is in turn playing “Frank Zappa.” Ringo as “Larry/Frank” (“a very tall dwarf”) sports a Zappa wig and a big Zappa mustache. He pops up from time to time to be interviewed by Rance Muhammitz, or deliver some rambling monologues. Although anyone who’s read candid interviews with any of the Beatles knows their language can be as blunt and colorful as anyone else’s, it is a bit off-putting hearing our beloved Ringo talk explicitly about “fucking” and “scoring pussy.” But remember, he’s playing Frank Zappa. As in The Magic Christian, there is not much to be said regarding Ringo’s performance from a technical standpoint. Once again, he’s basically playing himself — dressed as Zappa. His well-known Liverpool accent is firmly in place. Zappa biographer Barry Miles reported that Ringo was suffering a heavy cold through the brief shoot, and read all of his lines off of cue cards. When Ringo wasn’t playing the role, his place was taken by a stuffed dummy with Zappa’s distinctive features drawn on it. The difference was negligible.

The musical portions are a migraine-inducing dumpster fire of zooms, frenetic edits, flashing lights, and jarring close-ups. The whole production, even the non-musical scenes, are completely slathered in cheesy video effects — solarization, double- and triple-exposures, and false colors. In the words of the Den of Geek website, the video effects are “overbearing, unrelenting, and incomprehensible.” The use of video instead of film as a shooting medium did the production no favors, except for maybe saving a few bucks at the time. The combination of shooting on video, low-tech effects, and the junky sets makes the whole thing look like the world’s most catastrophic 1970s PBS kids’ show. In 21st-century parlance, Zappa and company would say all of these are “features not bugs,” and the film’s look was absolutely intended. But it doesn’t make it any more watchable knowing Zappa wanted it that way.

A couple of typical shots from 200 Motels

Or did he?

Prologue: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Ringo the Actor

When I was a super young Beatles fan in the early ‘80s (age 7-10 or so), there wasn’t much beyond the music itself and a couple of books out there to feed my fandom. So when PBS decided to show the 1982 documentary The Compleat Beatles a few years after it came out, I made sure I was rolling VHS tape on it. In subsequent years, I literally wore out the tape watching and re-watching it. It ended with a brief summary on the activities of each individual Beatle after the break-up. Here’s Ringo’s:

That always puzzled me. “An acting career in Hollywood?” I went to the movies a lot as a kid, and I’d never seen any movie starring Ringo Starr. This statement was also echoed in the handful of Beatles books I had collected. Everyone agreed without contradiction that Ringo became an actor in the 1970s.

As it turns out, this is a bit of an overstatement. Ringo’s acting career never amounted to much, and the film work he did was pretty well removed from anything that can be described as “Hollywood.” 

But thinking about all this recently did get me interested in exploring the work of the solo Beatles on film, one element of their careers that I never delved into all that much.

Collectively, the Beatles were movie stars by the middle of 1964.

There was once a time (the mid-20th century) when a popular singer could reach such a level of universal fame that they would be elevated past being a mere “singer,” to become an “entertainer.” They would be expected to not only sing and continue to sell records by the bushel, but also act in films, and appear on television (frequently poking good-natured fun at themselves in comedy sketches and the like). Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and several others made the cross-over. It was all just homogenous “show business” at a certain point. By the early 1960s, even bands like the Beatles were expected — almost required — to follow the established path. Of course, it was bands like the Beatles and their contemporaries who put an end to this kind of thing by creating the world of modern rock and rebelling against old-school showbiz traditions. But in their early years, they really felt they had no choice but to play along. In October 1963 (when they had been famous in Britain for less than a year and hadn’t broken in the US at all), Beatles manager Brian Epstein signed them to a three-picture deal with United Artists.

It didn’t matter that none of the Beatles expressed an iota of interest in acting, because United Artists didn’t have an iota of interest in the Beatles as actors. They wanted the lucrative rights to the soundtrack album, which they hoped to cash in on before the Beatles fad died (as everyone was certain it would, any week now). Someone could have filmed the Beatles reading the phone book against a blank wall, and as long as some songs were interspersed in there, UA would be happy. Luckily, that’s not what happened.

What happened was they ended up making a really good movie. 

While contract negotiations were underway, United Artists producer Walter Shenson had a lunch with Richard Lester, who had just directed the Mouse That Roared sequel (The Mouse on the Moon) for Shenson and UA. When Shenson mentioned he would likely be handling an upcoming Beatles film, Lester eagerly asked if he could direct it. Shenson thought it was a wonderful idea.

Lester — described by singer/writer/eccentric George Melly as “an amiable space creature, very thin, with a great domed bald head, tiny childlike features and large kind eyes” — was born in Philadelphia, but had been working in television in the UK since the early 1950s, and had a couple of feature films under his belt by late 1963. He was 31 years old when he took on the Beatles’ first film, very youthful by today’s standards, but in the world of early ‘60s pop music, where both artists and fans were in their teens or not much past, he was an “adult.” A sophisticated lover of classical music who was a decent hand on the piano, no less. But unlike a lot of other “adults,” he did not necessarily look down on pop music, and the Beatles were on his radar pretty early. And when the Beatles heard Lester had been tapped to direct their movie, they approved wholeheartedly. They knew Lester had directed The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, a surreal short featuring their comedy idols, Goon Show stars Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. 

Lester brought in Liverpool playwright Alun Owen to craft a script. (As a writer, Owen was so closely associated with Liverpool that Epstein reached out to him about the possibility of writing a Beatles script even before the UA deal was conceived, and likely pointed Lester in his direction.) Owen traveled with the band during their two-day trip to Ireland (November 7-8, 1963), and was able to distill their personalities and transcribe some of their witty remarks into his Oscar-nominated screenplay, which was an exaggerated “day in the life of the Beatles.” Aware that the group had no experience as professional actors, Owen made sure that no Beatle had more than one line at a time. Lester had a tight schedule (six weeks in March and early April 1964) and a modest (but by no means tiny) budget, so he used the limitations to his advantage, presenting the band in a gritty, black-and-white, semi-documentary style.

When A Hard Day’s Night hit cinemas in the summer of ‘64, the established film critics found themselves astonished that they actually enjoyed a movie about a bunch of pop musicians. Their positive reviews carried almost a puzzled air. Could this be possible? Lester’s film was fast-paced, inventive, and a great example of deadpan British humor. All of the Beatles acquitted themselves quite well, but one member was always singled out by the critics for individual praise — Ringo Starr. Ringo had a lengthy solo sequence two-thirds of the way through the film. Feeling put-upon by his bandmates, he ditches rehearsals to go on a lonely ramble along the Thames. He projects an air of melancholy and vulnerability, and the viewers’ hearts go right out to him. (His secret to “acting” this scene? He had been partying all night the night before, never went to bed, and was sleepy and hungover as the cameras rolled early in the morning.)

Although all the Beatles were natural performers — they just exuded charisma — everyone decided that Ringo was the one who had the potential to be a true actor. So he became the central figure (not exactly “star”) of the Beatles’ next film, 1965’s Help! Lester was once again at the helm, and engineered a complete departure from the Hard Day’s Night style — this time he went with glorious Pop Art color, and a pretty silly “story” (originally concocted as a Peter Sellers vehicle) about a cursed ring on Ringo’s finger. It was essentially a live-action cartoon, and the critics weren’t quite as effusive as they were for A Hard Day’s Night. But the music was as good as ever, spoofing the globe-trotting James Bond series was fun, and once again Ringo was noted for the special quality he brought to the screen. The band even paid tribute to the budding Brando in their midst by recording a cover of Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally” with Ringo singing lead. They enjoyed a good working relationship with Lester, and considered him a friend.

There was one more film left on their United Artists contract, and if they followed the pattern of 1964 and 1965, then they would produce a film (and accompanying soundtrack album) for a summer 1966 release. 

It did not come to pass.

A Talent For Loving and Up Against It

In the 1500s, an Aztec curse is placed on a Spanish conquistador…he and all of his descendants until the end of time will be consumed by insatiable lust from the moment of their first carnal encounter. Flash forward three centuries…Mexico, 1871. A prosperous ranch owner (and victim of the curse) is trying to marry off his virginal daughter before the curse “ruins” her. A series of competitions between two young ranch hands will determine which one has enough physical stamina to meet her needs and keep her honorably faithful in the bonds of matrimony…

This is the plot of A Talent For Loving or, The Great Cowboy Race, a 1961 novel by Richard Condon (famous at the time as the author of The Manchurian Candidate). It was an interesting attempt to combine a post-modern Western tale with an irreverent sex farce. In an odd move, Brian Epstein secured the film rights, envisioning this as a potential vehicle for the Beatles.

At what point “Beatles” and “Old West comedy about nymphomania” blended together in Brian Epstein’s mind is unclear (or maybe it was someone else’s suggestion), but it seems that the Beatles were big western fans, and evidently they had been bitten by the acting bug. They wanted to play actual characters instead of “the Beatles.” A screenplay written by Condon and his wife Evelyn was completed by March 1965 (literally while Help! was shooting), and it was hoped they could film in September. “No reason why Liverpool lads shouldn’t be out there [in the West],” said Condon confidently, “complete with accents, lariats, and six-shooters.” Walter Shenson was brought into the picture that summer, confirming this was to be the Beatles’ third UA release. But the film went into re-write hell — it seems it was more difficult than anticipated to incorporate four Liverpudlians into a western set in Mexico. The September shooting window came and went, because no one was happy with the script. By December, the project was dead. Times were changing fast, the Beatles were growing artistically by leaps and bounds, and they had soured on the idea of “playing cowboys” in a comedy. They also had genuine concerns about recording an appropriate soundtrack (19th-century Mexican balladry was not their forte). If they had to do another movie, they wanted something modern and cutting-edge. Epstein and Shenson went back to script hunting, still hoping to get a Beatles film into theaters sometime in 1966.

Any time the Beatles’ possible participation in a western comes up in discussion on a website, it is universally accompanied by one or more of these cowboy-themed images from a September 1964 photo shoot at the end of their summer tour of the US

[A Talent For Loving was eventually made in 1969, with Shenson still producing. It starred Richard Widmark (playing a middle-aged Civil War vet), Cesar Romero (playing the ranch owner), and Topol (playing a Mexican generalissimo with as much subtlety as the Frito Bandito). Obviously, none of these parts were suitable for the Beatles. I can only speculate that the two cowboys in competition for the rancher’s daughter would have become four cowboys, the four cowboys would also be British immigrants, and the parts would be much more fleshed out and important than the two hunky empty hats in the released version. Good ol’ Ringo probably would have been the victor.] 

It soon became apparent that there would be no 1966 Beatles movie, but a contract was a contract, and there was always 1967. In late ‘66, Walter Shenson commissioned writer Owen Holder to craft a script that would meet the “modern, cutting-edge” requirement. Holder came up with Shades of a Personality, the story of a young man (Holder envisioned Lennon in the lead role) with three separate personalities, to be embodied by the other three Beatles. (Classic rock fans will recognize this as very similar to the Who’s 1973 concept album Quadrophenia.)

Holder’s script was met with little enthusiasm from the group. They really did not want to do another “Beatles” movie at this point. So desperate were they to not appear in front of the cameras that they tried to give United Artists an independently-produced animated film that had their likenesses (but not their actual voices) and a few new songs. Yellow Submarine was distributed by UA in 1968, but it did not fulfill their contract.

Hoping to entice them with edgiest of cutting-edge, Brian Epstein gave the Holder screenplay to Joe Orton for a re-write. Orton was the “bad boy” of British theater at that time. Plays like Loot and What the Butler Saw caused a sensation due to their explicitness and dark-humored nihilism. Orton began working on the Beatles project in January of 1967. He injected the material with a healthy dose of sadomasochism, polyamory, and gay subtext. He submitted the revised script — now called Up Against It — to the Beatles’ management. After several months with no word, the script was simply returned to him without comment. Free to entertain other options on the script, Orton was due to attend a meeting with producer Oscar Lowenstein and director Richard Lester on August 9, 1967. His body was discovered that day in his London flat, having been bluedgeoned to death by his boyfriend Kenneth Halliwell (whose body was nearby — he committed suicide by overdose). Eighteen days later, Brian Epstein died of an accidental overdose. (Paul McCartney admitted in 1997 that the Beatles had been frightened off the Orton project by the homosexual themes in the script.)

Less than two months after the death of their manager, the very first solo Beatle film would be released. 

Here’s my format for discussing the films of the solo Beatles:

No TV movies, no concert films, no documentaries, no popping up as themselves in a cameo. These are narrative films released in cinemas in which they play a character. (I fudged it a little on Give My Regards to Broad Street in which Paul McCartney plays a “fictional” rock star that, based on all observable evidence, is pretty much “Paul McCartney.”) I will watch each film in its entirety at least once, most of them for the first time in many years, and a few of them for the first time ever. Release dates will generally be for the British release, unless otherwise noted.