Magical Mystery Tour

An ongoing argument between Richard B. Starkey (M.B.E., the director of photography here, with four cameramen) and his Aunt Jessica, resolved in the form of a joke the punchline of which is “Your Mother Should Know”.

The surrealist construction is quite a marvel, particularly in its articulation of segments one to another, one of the great films in this language.

None of this was at first sight evident to critics, nor has been ever since.

A signal influence is Richard Lester’s The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, there is also Lindsay Anderson’s The White Bus (and, so please you, The Strange World of Gurney Slade, dir. Alan Tarrant).