[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TPE-VRXaQw]
The Beatles' second feature film, 1965's Help!, is making its Blu-Ray debut this June.
Reuniting with A Hard Day's Night director Richard Lester with a bigger budget (for one, they shot in color), Help! finds The Fab Four in yet another set of wacky predicaments - this time, Ringo can't seem to get a ring unstuck from his finger, and an evil cult want said ring for their own purposes. Silly stuff, for sure - and, at perhaps the most grueling heights of Beatlemania, not as fun a shoot for the band as A Hard Day's Night - but a captivating chapter in the band's catalogue.
The accompanying album remains one of the most drastically different in the band's catalogue on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.K. (now the standard version of the album, remixed by George Martin for its 1987 CD release), it featured chart-topping singles in "Ticket to Ride" and the title track as well as instant classics "I've Just Seen a Face," "You're Going to Lose That Girl," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" - all of which featured in the film - and "Yesterday" (a U.S. No. 1 hit). The U.S. version, released on the United Artists label, was a much more standard soundtrack album, featuring some non-Beatles orchestral passages arranged by Ken Thorne.
First officially released on DVD in 2007, this single-disc Blu-Ray ports over all of that two-disc set's material into a new HD set. Features included are:
- A 5.1 surround sound mix for the film
- 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)
Help! arrives on Blu-Ray June 24 around the world and a day later in America. Pre-order links will be added as they are available.
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Please note that the featurette "A Missing Scene" merely talks about a missing scene. While nearly a dozen unused scenes were filmed for "Help", United Artists threw away the footage. George Harrison once contacted UA, and they confirmed this.
Is the mono audio included on this films dts master audio?
does Help! on the blu ray have the same mono master audio that it did when it was released in movie theaters?