The movie George Harrison called “the biggest load of baloney shite”
We all know and love George Harrison and the guitar-playing mastermind behind some of The Beatles’ amazing riffs, melodies and their greatest songs. While he may have started his career as a relatively underappreciated member of the band, towards the end of the band’s run, he had established himself as a good singer, guitarist, and excellent writer.
Dave Grohl is representative of a lot of George Harrison fans, as while he appreciated every member of The Beatles, there was something about the understated guitar player that spoke to him. “I think that of all The Beatles — of course,” he said, “Each one of them is so entirely different, melodically they’re so different, songwriting, lyrically — but George Harrison, there was something about him that I almost preferred the most.”
Grohl continued, “I loved every single one of them for different reasons, but I connected to George Harrison’s sense of melody more than anyone.”
Harrison really stepped into his own when he started his solo career after The Beatles had split up. He had the chance to record and release a lot of the songs that he had previously been unable to give to the public, as they didn’t fit the Lennon and McCartney mould that the band’s record label was keen to preserve. If people ever doubted his ability as a musician, those doubts were silenced as soon as he had the opportunity to silence them.
His interests expanded beyond just music, though. Harrison was well-versed in film, as he loved watching various movies and even starred in a few. There were the films he made with The Beatles, but he also financed some Monty Python projects, as he adored the comedy troupe.
Eric Idle said it was great having musicians back in their movies because they were happy for the film to be made in its truest form and didn’t interfere too much. “The good news about them was that they didn’t want the money back,” he said, “They don’t care and they don’t interfere. They don’t say ‘Oh no, there should be a scene over here with someone with another head.’ They are the best backers.”
Idle and Harrison formed a strong friendship after working together on a few different projects. “His friendship meant an enormous amount to me,” he said. “I was going through a broken marriage at the time. He was very encouraging and friendly and supportive. We’d go to his house and play guitars.”
While Harrison was a big fan of many of the Monty Python films, there were a lot of other movies that he wasn’t a fan of. One of these was the classic Cat Ballou, which he watched high one day and thought was very mundane.
“Later on that day, we were all tripping out and they brought several starlets in and set up a movie for us to watch in the house,” said Harrison, recalling the day he watched the movie. “By the evening, there were all these strangers sitting around with their make-up on — and acid just cuts through all that bulls***. The movie was put on, and — of all things — it was a drive-in print of Cat Ballou. The drive-in print has the audience response already dubbed onto it, because you’re all sitting in your cars and don’t hear everybody laugh. Instead, they tell you when to laugh and when not to. It was bizarre, watching this on acid.”
His review on the film was fairly brutal: “I’ve always hated Lee Marvin, and listening on acid to that other little dwarf bloke with a bowler hat on, I thought it was the biggest load of baloney shite I’d ever seen in my life; it was too much to stand,” he said. “But you just trip out.”
