Filming “Help!” in Austria • Day 4

On the fourth day of filming “Help!” in Obertauern, Austria, The Beatles filmed scenes in which they played curling. Among those appearing as figurants for those scenes was Gloria Mackh, who had been crowned Miss Austria in 1964 and was among the ski instructors engaged to teach The Beatles during their time at the resort.

Mackh’s family owned the Marietta Hotel in Obertauern, where the film crew was accommodated during the shoot. The Beatles themselves stayed at the Hotel Edelweiss. At her parents’ request, Mackh also assisted the English production team by acting as an interpreter between them and the Austrian crew throughout the filming of “Help!“

It has been reported that Paul McCartney and Gloria Mackh were briefly romantically involved during the Obertauern shoot, though this has not been confirmed.

Also, on this day, the Beatles’ second film — only known as “Beatles 2” — was given its first public title: “Eight Arms To Hold You.” The title was a reference to the statue of the Hindu goddess Kali featured in several sequences of the film. The suggestion came from Ringo Starr, who had previously proposed the title of the group’s debut film, “A Hard Day’s Night.”

“Eight Arms To Hold You” would remain the working title for approximately one month. Among the practical difficulties it presented was the challenge facing John Lennon and Paul McCartney of composing a song with this title.

Filming continued the following day.

The day-to-day filming activity in Austria is drawn from “The Complete Beatles Chronicle” by Mark Lewisohn.

RINGO dreamed up “A Hard Day’s Night” as title of the Beatles’ first film. The drummer is also the creator of “Eight Arms To Hold You”, title of their second picture. He is also the star of the film.

Said producer Walter Shenson in Austria: “Ringo’s the surprising man of the Beatles—quiet for days, then suddenly he’ll come up with something, like the title, that takes everybody off guard and proves he’s as sharp as the rest.“

Now Ringo has “announced” his decision about the title, John and Paul will be busy writing a song to fit the theme “Eight Arms To Hold You”.

From Melody Maker, March 27 1965

Apart from skiing sequences, which were filmed when it was snowing, Dick Lester also spent a lot of time shooting the Beatles curling on the lake. For those who don’t know, curling consists of sliding heavy, circular slabs of granite along the ice — you hold them by a handle at the top. It’s rather like playing bowls. The Beatles clearly enjoyed the game as you can see from the photographs in this issue. Once the bowler has started sliding the heavy granite stone along the ice, his teammates are supposed to help its progress by wiping the snow away with special brooms, and it was hilarious to watch the Beatles trying to imitate the technique of the experienced curlers. As usual they kept joking and laughing, and eventually ended up by doing a sort of modern dance on the ice which also looked a bit like a cross between a barn dance and old fashioned ring-a-roses.

It was really fascinating watching Dick Lester filming the sequence when Mal Evans popped up from a hole in the ice, which was supposed to have been opened up by a big explosion. The Beatles didn’t have to do much, they just jumped when the big bang went off and then came over to see how Mal was getting on. Poor Mal must have been absolutely frozen. All he was wearing was an old fashioned swimming costume with cap and goggles and a very thick layer of grease to protect him from the cold. Everyone was a bit concerned that he would freeze to death before the scene was over.

Rudolf Aigmüller – From The Beatles Monthly Book – May 1985

It was the first time we’d been to Austria- first time I’d been on skis. I loved that. In one of the scenes, Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear are playing curling, sliding along those big stones. One of the stones has a bomb in it and we find out that it’s going to blow up, and have to run away. Well, Paul and I ran about seven miles, we ran and ran, just so we could stop and have a joint before we came back. We could have run all the way to Switzerland. If you look at pictures of us you can see a lot of red-eyed shots, they were red from the dope we were smoking. And these were those clean-cut boys! Dick Lester knew that very little would get done after lunch.

Ringo Starr – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

None of the Beatles had ever been on skis before so the producers hired Gloria Makk — Miss Austria, 1964 — to teach them the basics. She also acted as their translator and contact and even ended up playing a small part in the film. Gloria tried very hard but it was quite obvious from the start that the Beatles had no intention of taking their skiing lessons seriously. They just treated the whole thing as a big joke and often seemed to delight in doing the wrong thing. This can be very dangerous, of course, because it’s very easy to break a leg on skis. But nothing seemed to frighten the Beatles. John, particularly, kept trying all sorts of crazy antics and Gloria was really worried all the time that he’d end up in hospital.

From The Beatles Monthly Book – May 1985

When in 1965 did the Beatles arrive at your hotel and how long did the artists stay with you?

The Beatles and the crew were in Obertauern from the beginning of February and furnished the makeup and changing rooms as they saw fit. They stayed until the end of filming in February [sic: The Beatles themselves were in Austria from March 13 to 22, 1965]

How did the evening concerts, in which a Bösendorfer grand was played, come about?

Many evenings turned into Beatles evenings, even if they surely hadn’t been planned in advanced. Again and again there were occasions to celebrate: birthday, engagements or simply a good day of filming were enough to get our “house band” in the mood to celebrate.

How did fans react to the “Fab Four”?

There were about 100 house guests at our ski hotel and in the evenings another 100 from other, surrounding hotels. What happened onstage was mostly so unexpected, impulsive and thrilling that the ski guests, who wanted to spend a cozy evening in our ski hotel, were going wild and neither service personnel nor the boss could calm them down. Since our musical entertainment was always of a high caliber and full of imaginativeness, our reputation now became legendary. In the evenings there was no room, not even standing room. You never knew what the evening would bring.

George Harrison’s birthday was February 25. Did you celebrate it back then in the Hotel Marietta?

Yes, of course George’s birthday [sic – George was in the Bahamas on his birthday] was celebrated rather merrily. At the time he had his new, pretty girlfriend Pat with him and after filming was mostly in the room with her. Incidentally, Ringo also had his newlywed wife Maureen Cox with him, and he spent most of the time with her.

What impression did the Beatles leave on you?

I had a lot of good, humorous discussions with Paul and John during breaks in filming while sitting in the snow groomers, and also put them on skis to at least teach them the very basics of this sport. Paul definitely wanted to take me to England with him, yet I had to fulfill my contracts in the US.

Gloria Mackh – 2010 interview – From @truthaboutthebeatlesgirls on Tumblr

THE BEATLES’ SECOND FILM—CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION — WILL BE CALLED “EIGHT ARMS TO HOLD YOU,” IT WAS REVEALED ON WEDNESDAY. THE FILM WILL PROBABLY BE PREMIERED IN LONDON AT THE END OF JULY, SLIGHTLY LATER THAN “A HARD DAY’S NIGHT” WAS FIRST SHOWN LAST YEAR.

From New Musical Express – March 19, 1965

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group.

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• https://www.beatlesbible.com/1965/03/17/filming-help-19/