11 September: Magical Mystery Tour

On this date in 1967, filming began for The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. 10 facts about it:

1. This is the third film featuring The Beatles.

2. It’s about a bunch of people on a mystery tour, a mystery tour being a type of cheap weekend trip popular at the time, in which people travelled by coach to an unknown destination. Some of the passengers on this trip are magicians who cause strange things to happen.

3. The film was shot mostly at RAF West Malling, a decommissioned military airfield in Kent.

4. The coach was a Plaxton-bodied Bedford VAL, with the registration number URO 913E. It is now outside the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, Florida.

5. The coach was adorned with a hand written "Magical Mystery Tour" sign, which attracted curious onlookers who began following it and causing traffic congestion. John Lennon got so fed up of it all that he ordered the Bus to stop, got out and tore the sign off. At Teignmouth, Devon the local constable chased them on for disturbing the peace.

6. There wasn’t much of a script. Paul McCartney, inspired by Ken Kesey‘s Merry Pranksters, who drove around California in a multi-coloured school bus spreading the LSD gospel. On the flight home, McCartney jotted down ideas, including the lyrics for the title song, on a piece of scrap paper. This was as near to a script as the film got. Most of the actors didn’t even realise until they were actually on the bus, that they were going to have to improvise.

7. One scene was inspired by a dream John Lennon had, that he was a waiter shovelling Spaghetti onto a customer.

8. Some of the flying scenes are outtakes from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

9. The Disney Channel broadcast the movie in the 1990s, with the strip club scene edited out.

10. The film premiered on TV on Christmas Day 1967 and received poor reviews. It’s said that Ringo Starr blamed the BBC for this because they broadcast the film in black and white (Colour television was in its infancy at the time). He rang the BBC to complain and as a result they broadcast it again in January on BBC2 in colour. The critics still didn’t like it.