‘Magical Mystery Tour’ sees the Beatles on one of those dull, dull, bus trips around the countryside.
Except of course this trip keeps getting interrupted by strange happenings and visions, and has some classic Beatles tracks including ‘Flying’ (with lots of colour filter changes which would have really looked rubbish when this film first aired on TV, in black and white!); ‘Blue Jay Way’ (in which George drones on while playing a keyboard drawn on a rock); ‘Your Mother Should Know’ (with the cheesy ‘coming down the stairs’ bit); ‘The Fool on the Hill’ (where Paul stands on a hill, natch); and, best of all, ‘I Am The Walrus’ (with eggmen, walruses, and other strange beings, and some funky spaced out camera work).
The fab four also appear as some irritating magicians, all big hats and silly voices, and not that funny, while Ringo’s ‘aunty’ dreams about hitting it off with Buster Bloodvessel (played by the very odd Ivor Cutler). Nat Jackley gets in there too, as well as Victor Spinetti playing a manic Sergeant major who talks so fast thatnoonecankeepupwithawordheissaying…
If you’re bored with The Beatles, you can always catch the Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band near the end doing ‘Death Cab For Cutie’ while singer Viv is distracted by a stripper (the very alluring Jan Carson).
Is the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ worth your time. Well, it’s different.
I can just see a 1967 audience watching this on the box and thinking ‘what the…?’. It’s on a par with ‘Yellow Submarine’ although I think this time they didn’t take themselves quite so seriously.
The ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, with its tent, muddy spaghetti on the restaurant table, very white beaches, and static cows, is a candy coated, multi-coloured, goggle-eyed, very silly bundle of fun.