On the "HELP!" set

Dick Lester (left) Ringo (back to camera), Lennon(center) and Harrison (right)
on the set of Help


It was the 60s and The Beatles were filming "Help" in the Bahamas. I was a reporter for the Nassau Guardian and took a day off from covering the Government to see what the rapidly becoming (if not already) famous mopheads were up to. I shot photos from a distance with a telephoto lens in order to get unposed shots of them on the set, even then they had learned to mug for the press.

Their next location was Switzerland, but that sequence came before the one they were shooting in the Bahamas. As a result Director Dick Lester had ordered them to stay out of the sunlight, the reason, of course, why most people go to the Bahamas in the first place.

Their predicament was summed up by one shot I took of John Lennon's feet poking out of the window of their limo (www.flickr.com/photos/marknewell). At the end of the day the scene was a conversation the four were having as they circled on bicycles on a road outside Nassau. It was obvious there was not a script for any of these scenes.

At a point where it seemed to me the shot was over, I made ready to leave and kicked the starter on my motorcycle. The noise as the engine fired up seems to have deafened the sound technicians. Everyone screamed for me to shut the engine off. I did. Everyone stared at me with the kind of expression that said "Doesn't EVERYONE on a move set know not to make a whisper until the mikes are shut down?"

The Beatles all looked at me. Probably for the first time that day. Ringo yelled: "You Git!"

"Git," I gathered, was Birminghamese for "idiot!"

I smiled, waited until the sound techs had taken their headsets off, then started up again and headed for Nassau to file my story.

I never did see the Beatles in the flesh again, but I have always claimed them as friends when they came up in conversation...."oh sure, yeah, I know them well...I have spent time with them...Ringo and I have talked...."

Courtesy: marknewell.blogspot.com