London – May 15, 2013 – The Beatles’ second feature film, 1965’s Help!, is on the way on Blu-ray. On June 24 (June 25 in North America), Help! makes its eagerly awaited Blu-ray debut in a single-disc package pairing the digitally restored film and 5.1 soundtrack with an hour of extra features, including a 30-minute documentary about the making of the film, memories of the cast and crew, an in-depth look at the restoration process, an outtake scene, and original theatrical trailers and radio spots. An introduction by the film’s director, Richard Lester, and an appreciation by Martin Scorsese are included in the Blu-ray’s booklet.
Help!’s Blu-ray edition follows the 2012 release of The Beatles’ digitally restored Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour feature films on Blu-ray, DVD and iTunes with extensive extras. Help!’s restoration for its 2007 DVD debut wowed viewers, earning five-times platinum sales in the U.S. and praise from a broad range of top media outlets around the world, including USA Today heralding the DVD as “a grand re-release,” The Guardian’s appreciation of the film’s director, Richard Lester, saying “Lester matches The Beatles’ ‘star’ power with smart, colourful visuals and casual surrealism,” The Los Angeles Times’ restoration rave: “With dynamic compression that was standard in the 1960s lifted for the digital age, the full range of the group’s musicality comes through – it’s like several coats of dust have been cleaned off an old master’s painting,” and four-star reviews from Rolling Stone and MOJO with the latter saying, “They really don't make them like this anymore.”
Directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the band’s debut feature film, 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help! follows The Beatles as they become passive recipients of an outside plot that revolves around Ringo's possession of a sacrificial ring, which he cannot remove from his finger. As a result, he and his bandmates John, Paul and George are chased from London to the Austrian Alps and the Bahamas by religious cult members, a mad scientist and the London police.
In addition to starring The Beatles, Help! boasts a witty script, a great cast of British character actors, and classic Beatles songs “Help!,” “You're Going To Lose That Girl,” “You've Got To Hide Your Love Away,” “Ticket To Ride,” “I Need You,” “The Night Before,” and “Another Girl.”
Help!’s Blu-ray package pairs the digitally restored original film with these extra features:
• “The Beatles in Help!” – a 30-minute documentary about the making of the film with Richard Lester, the cast and crew, including exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of The Beatles on-set.
• “A Missing Scene” – a film outtake, featuring Wendy Richard
• “The Restoration of Help!” – an in-depth look at the restoration process
• “Memories of Help!” – the cast and crew reminisce
• 1965 Theatrical Trailers – two original U.S. trailers and one original Spanish trailer
• 1965 U.S. Radio Spots (hidden in disc menus)
Last edited by Deciazulado; 06-26-2013 at 09:55 AM.
Great news! All we need now is Let it Be to see the light of day and I'll be a happy camper (I'd love Anthology, but we all know that will most likely never happen)
Just a quick heads up that this appears to be the pre-order for the dvd version. It's doesn't appears that a Blu-ray pre-order listing exists on Amazon yet.
Just a quick heads up that this appears to be the pre-order for the dvd version. It's doesn't appears that a Blu-ray pre-order listing exists on Amazon yet.
It says DVD at the top of the page but if you scroll down to the product details it says Blu-ray as the format.
Just a quick heads up that this appears to be the pre-order for the dvd version. It's doesn't appears that a Blu-ray pre-order listing exists on Amazon yet.
No fear of that. Magical Mystery Tour was shot on 16mm reversal stock for TV. This is a proper movie, but I'll pass, as I remember being very unimpressed when I saw it at the cinema about three lifetimes ago. Great album though.
I am listening to the album as I type this. I love the film but not sure I want to upgrade the DVD. Oh who am I kidding I will probably buy three, it is The Beatles.
No fear of that. Magical Mystery Tour was shot on 16mm reversal stock for TV. This is a proper movie, but I'll pass, as I remember being very unimpressed when I saw it at the cinema about three lifetimes ago. Great album though.
MMT's problem wasn't its 16mm source. It's the atrocious DNR they applied to it. The unrestored outtakes in the supplements have a much more film-like presentation.
MMT's picture, along with the live action outro in Yellow Submarine have me cautious about Apple's film restoration methods.
Last edited by Rizor; 05-16-2013 at 12:14 AM.
Reason: typo
MMT's problem wasn't its 16mm source. It's the atrocious DNR they applied to it. The unrestored outtakes in the supplements have a much more film-like presentation.
MMT's picture, along with the live action outro in Yellow Submarine have me cautious about Apple's film restoration methods.
I agree on all fronts. I'm thinking part of it was because certain picture elements only existed on (I believe) 1" videotape, they made an attempt at keeping the visuals as consistant as possible. It really does look pretty bad, especially when projected or viewed on large monitors.
Although regarding Help! presuming the restoration feature is the same as the previously released DVD, I'm guessing they're using that master, which IIRC was done by Lowry...
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The Beatles HELP! June 25 Review
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