Day two-hundred-sixty-four

Right now, as I write this, the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour is showing on PBS. It's undoubtedly one of the strangest films I've ever seen. It's ostensibly about a group of people taking a tour on a bus and what they experience along the way, with some musical interludes. There really isn't a story to speak of, as the movie is largely improvised; a lot of things happen in the movie, but they don't add up to much of anything. There are magicians, as well, played by the Beatles themselves, but they have little to do with the movie's proceedings.

Being a Beatles project, the music is easily the best part of the movie. The soundtrack includes the title track, "I Am the Walrus", and "Your Mother Should Know":
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=08r4huUMPaI

This is easily the best number in the movie, as it's the one part that has some organization. It's difficult to pull off this kind of "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" randomness, as much of what happens isn't very interesting. The story goes that the Beatles loaded a bus full of people and filmed it if anything happened, and nothing really did.

I think I would recommend this movie solely if you are a big Beatles fan, except perhaps as a bit of a curiosity. It originally aired Boxing Day 1967 on the BBC, and was rather poorly received at the time, being the Beatles' first project to enjoy poor reception, despite the success of the adjoining album.

If you're interested in this kind of movie but want something better put-together, I would recommend the Monkees' 1968 film Head. It's still a strange movie, but it makes much more sense than Magical Mystery Tour, due in no small part to having an actual screenplay (co-written by Jack Nicholson). The acting talents of the Monkees themselves, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork, also enhance the movie, having just come off two years of their TV show, where they were encouraged to improvise.

Head plays with the idea that the Monkees were a real band of musicians who were also a fake band on a television show with actors portraying fictionalized versions of themselves. Even when they figure out the conundrum of their existence, it still adds up to a plot point in a movie about themselves written by someone else. Here is the movie in its entirety:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gVxriDM8h68