Beatles Director Donates Archives to British Film Institute

Posted on Aug 23rd 2010 6:30AM by Chris Mugan
Comments

PA Photos

Unseen drafts for the Beatles films 'Help!' and 'A Hard Day's Night' have been given to the British Film Institute (BFI), as part of director Richard Lester's archives.

Highlights of this sizeable donation include correspondence with everyone from Hollywood actor Charlton Heston to comedian Spike Milligan, part of fabled British comedy troupe the Goons, the BBC reports. Over a 40-year career, Lester had many hits, including 'Superman II' and 'The Three Musketeers,' but his first feature film break came thanks to the Beatles.

As every Fab Four obsessive knows, the band were huge fans of the Goons' surreal brand of humour, especially John Lennon, and Lester came to their attention due to his connection with them. The young director had worked on one of the Goons' first forays into television, 1956 series 'The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d.'

So the Beatles had a say in Lester coming to direct their first two films, though the scripts here are only titled 'Beatles One' and 'Beatles Two.' Now aged 78, Lester has retired from the movie world, apart from a brief return to make a film of Paul McCartney's 1989-90 world tour, 'Get Back.'

Nathalie Morris, the BFI's curator of special collections, expects more treasures to appear as her team sorts through 60 boxes of documents, including Polaroid photos that give behind the scenes insights. She said, "It is an immensely generous gift and it's great to know that people are going to be able to come in and look at it."