A special wardrobe was made for The Beatles’ Austrian scenes. All four wore black skin-tight trousers and ankle-length ski boots in black sealskin. John sported a black cape lined with white satin while Ringo wore a tight-fitting black sweater with white rings around the sleeves. George also wore a black sweater but with a white stripe down each sleeve while Paul had on a loosely cut ski jacket in lustrous sealskin.

Filming was completed on 13th May, the rest of the film’s scenes being shot in London, Salisbury Plain (with permission from the War Office) and Twickenham Studios. While ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ had cost only $500,000 to make, ‘Help!’ (filmed in Eastmancolor) cost $1.5 million. This Walter Shenson-Subafilms production was once again distributed by United Artists and directed by Dick Lester.

The film begins with the tribute: “Respectfully dedicated to the memory of Elias Howe who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine”. Title cards are used at various points in the film bearing such inscriptions as ‘Intermission’ and ‘End of Intermission’: the scene in which Paul is miniaturised and dodges around the floor of his flat is heralded by a card reading ‘The Adventures of Paul on the Floor’.

By the time the cameras had started rolling, an official name still hadn’t been confirmed. It was initially known as ‘Beatles Two’ and for a time called ‘Eight Arms To Hold You’. John and Paul began composing numbers for the film even before they saw the script. A total of 14 numbers were originally produced, nine of which were given to Dick Lester who selected seven for the soundtrack.

Writing in the Daily Express, Clive Barnes commented; “These boys are the closest thing to the Marx Brothers since the Marx Brothers”. Kenneth Tynan, in his Observer review, wrote: “The Beatles themselves are not natural actors, nor are they exuberant extroverts. Their mode is dry and laconic, as befits the flat and sceptical Liverpool accent. Realising this, Lester leaves it to his cameraman (David Watkin) to create the exuberance, confining The Beatles to dead-pan comments and never asking them to react to events with anything approaching emotion. He capitalises on their wary, guarded detachment".
‘"There’s something been in this soup’ says John, having calmly removed from the plate a season ticket and a pair of spectacles. ‘Not a bit like Cagney’ is George’s response when a CID Superintendent favours the group with a patronising impersonation of Ringo”.

America’s Time magazine commented: “Help!’ in short, is a Beatle production rather than a Beatle movie. It must have cost, as the British say, a packet. It will certainly make, as the Americans say, a bundle”. The film did go on to make 'a bundle' and United Artists were obviously eager, along with Shenson and Lester, to make a third film with the group, but it never materialised. The Beatles were offered several scripts and ideas, but were unhappy with all of them. Perhaps ‘Help!’ had been a disappointment to them. Certainly, John never had anything positive to say about the film: “Help! was a drag, because we didn’t know what was happening. In fact, Lester was a bit ahead of his time with the Batman thing, but we were on pot by then and all the best stuff is on the cutting-room floor, with us breaking up and falling about all over the place”.

Some years later he was blunt and dismissive about the film, describing it as “Crap!” Walter Shenson summarised his own and The Beatles’ feelings as follows: “The Beatles finally decided to discharge the third film in their contract by filming the ‘Let It Be’ recording session. They financed it with UA (United Artists) and gave me a small piece of the profit. I think if we’d had a sensational script of a great idea, we might have made a third film, but it just wasn’t in the cards”.