Ringo (1978 TV movie)

Let's look at Ringo Starr's 1978 TV comedy film, written by Neal Israel and Pat Proft, both of whom would go on to make significant contributions to film comedy through the Police Academy and Naked Gun films, and loosely designed to promote his recent album Bad Boy.

We discuss where Ringo is in his career and how his performance (he plays two versions of himself in a take on Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper) made Hollywood reappraise him and led to his leading role in Caveman (also covered in a previous episode). We talk about why so many stars like Art Carney, John Ritter and an immediately-post-Star-Wars Carrie Fisher are keen to get involved.

And we discuss George Harrison’s performance, and why it’s a good job Ringo doesn’t seem to play You’re Sixteen live anymore.

• Watch the film: https://youtu.be/LditHJXu4LU
• The Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet is James Mangold's A Complete Unknown, currently in production: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/
• Watch 1977's The Prince and The Pauper, starring Oliver Reed: https://youtu.be/CNx2-e-OcIU
• Watch 1983's Trading Places, with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/trading-places
• Setlist.fm stats which seem to show that Ringo wisely hasn't played You're Sixteen live since September 2019: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/ringo-starr-and-his-all-starr-band-63c6b20b.html

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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