For the 2nd Beatles film the director Richard Lester abandoned any idea of a plot and instead went for a series of comic vignettes. What story there is involves a Eastern cult chasing Ringo around for a sacrificial ring. At this point in his career Lester was at his peak when it came to madcap comedy. To cover the very thin premise of the film Lester throws in about every comic idea that he can think of. After a while the film got a little exhausting, I wanted to finally say "wrap it up."
The Beatles are portrayed as a very likeable bunch of guys not adverse to having a few beers at a London pub. They are actually extremely likable and have a nice screen presence. Lester was smart enough to surround them with some very funny performers, Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Roy Kinnear (who was in about every Lester film), and Victor Spinetti. This helps the film a whole lot.
Probably the chief selling point of the film are the songs which the Beatles wrote for the film, amazingly they are all classic Beatles songs. The presentation of the songs uses a lot of jump cutting and wild staging something that was almost a forerunner of the modern music video.
The film was written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood. It runs 92 minutes
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