The Rutles

Eric Idle - Dirk McQuickley
John Halsey - Barry Wom
Ricky Fataar - Stig O'Hara
Neil Innes - Ron Nasty
Michael Palin - Eric Manchester
George Harrison - Interviewer
Bianca Jagger - Martini
John Belushi - Ron Decline
Dan Aykroyd - Brian Thigh
Gilda Radner - Mrs. Emily Pules
Bill Murray - Bill Murray the K.

This hugely influential beat combo, bearing remarkable similarities to The Beatles, first appeared on Eric Idle's post-Python venture Rutland Weekend Television. Formulated from a favourite Idle comic moment of the earnest television outside broadcaster running after his fast disappearing camera vehicle, this basic documentary satire was linked with a Beatlesque hit that Neil Innes had written, I Must Be In Love. Idle put the two of them together created The Rutles in a Hard Day's Rut and slipped it into the show.

When the time came for Idle to host Saturday Night Live, he took with him two snippets of Rutland Weekend Television as a sort of pre-American broadcast taster. Throughout the Saturday Night Live show there was a running gag concerning the upcoming reunion of The Beatles and Idle's clip simply fitted in with the overall joke. With a huge interest growing in the clip, Idle was approached to make a full-length version of the Rutles story in association with NBC. Thus it was that Saturday Night Live and Monty Python came together for the unforgettable story of the pre-Fab Four - The Rutles in All You Need Is Cash. Idle recaptures the Fab Four accurately, the five-piece group shot from Hamburg is uncanny; murky colour footage from the 63 Variety performance is exactly right; the quirky black and white interview footage with Lennonesque tank obsession and Ringoisms concerning desires to be two hairdressers embrace the off-the-wall wit of the group and even Mountbatten's book, A Cellar Full of Goys, taps into the collective memory of Epstein's A Cellar Full of Noise.

Mick Jagger eagerly and brilliantly throws himself into the Rutles mythology, playing along with Idle's recreated history for the Beatles and memorably stringing out a tale about the lads penning a song for his group. The vintage intercut of Idle's McCartney figure gets the perfect vocal intonation on the Rolling Stones and links into Jagger's hilarious condemnation of this quickly whipped off song that was 'horrible' and unrecorded by the Stones! The American invasion is full of great moments, watching themselves on a flickering TV screen, Innes, complete in Lennon leather black hat, witty, interactive press conferences, a doctored original intro from Ed Sullivan and even a wacky cameo for Bill Murray as the outlandish American DJ. Paul Simon's contribution adds name value only, while the documentary satire latches onto the old, old story of white performers stealing the blues riff from black performers, initially gleefully twisted on its head via Blind Lemon Pie's observations and finally taken to mock extremes.

Perhaps the most stunning piece of the film is the extended clip from the animation classic Yellow Submarine Sandwich, resurrecting the style of George Durning's Yellow Submarine perfectly, with the sequence of various opening doors, piggy banks with pig helmets, Innes sliding down a dinosaur, a brief reappearance from a Blue Meanie, clever interaction with the cartoon Rutles having a ripping time, a toothpaste mouse squeezed in a trap and a final animated note as the fades to white. The final collapse is perhaps the funniest part of the show, with Idle's soppy, sloppy silly love songs, champagne antics with Bianca Jagger and dee, dee, dee lyrics contrasted with Innes hitched up with Nazi-like Yoko figure from The Pretentious Gallery exhibition, giving nutty press conferences in a shower, presenting their avant-garde flick A Thousand Feet of Film based on Lennon's Self Portrait which he explained was basically about 'my prick' and adding to the cool feel of the film with another cracking, Lennon-like song Let's Be Natural.

Brilliantly observed comic moments are the release of Shabby Road, the appearance of Belushi's take on Alan Klein, Ron Decline, in a sort of American version of Ethel the Frog, the camera firm connection between McQuickly's in-laws (Kodak) and McCartney's (Eastman) and Idle's outrageous trudge through the dubious array of facts that lead people to believe that the quiet one, Stig, was dead. The most treasured scenes come with Palin's petulant, laid-back explanation of the tangled legal web, Idle's caustic comment that Let It Rot was released as a film, an album and a law suit, and perhaps, best of all, the immortal rooftop farewell gig as Innes absentmindedly boots some poor technician over the edge. It's a class moment, made all the more effective due to the absence of drawing attention to it. As a final embrace of the Anglo-American deal with the show, Idle desperately tries to coax a few words from a brilliant Gilda Radner and, suitably enough, the last words are given to Rock God Mick as he answers the question regarding the Rutles getting back together with a disgruntled, wide-eyed 'I hope not!!...' Not only an essential piece of superb Eric Idle comedy, creating a near Lennon/McCartney chemistry with Innes, but a totally essential video addition for any Beatles devotee, this is a musical, comical masterpiece of the highest order.
Review© Robert Ross: Monty Python Encyclopedia.