There is, I would say, very little of the censor laws' "redeeming social significance" [in Help!]. Unlike Hard Day's Night, which by means of a picaresque structure ran through a series of wonderful satiric sketches, Help! is a hapless farce from beginning to end, with many a limp-wristed flap at expected targets: mad science, Scotland Yard, James Bond movies. Even Terry Southern gets a fingery flutter. But there is no point, no bite, no edge. It's cotton candy, and in wide-screen Technicolor. From the few side remarks that I caught—and the Liverpuddlian accents still muffle a lot of meaning—the thing may be one huge in-joke, hinging on the farcical plot in which a fat caliph tries to recover a mystical ring now being worn by the unknowing Ringo. (pp. 57-8)

In all truth, however, there is little cause for complaint. The film was made for Beatle...