Description
All You Need Is Cash (also known as The Rutles) is a 1978 television film that traces (in mockumentary style) the career of a fictitious English rock group called the Rutles. As TV Guide described it, the group’s resemblance to the Beatles is “purely – and satirically – intentional”.
The film was co-produced by the production companies of Eric Idle and Lorne Michaels, and it was directed by Idle and Gary Weis. It was first broadcast on 22 March 1978 on NBC, earning the lowest ratings of any show on American prime time network television that week, though those who did watch it gave almost unanimously good reviews. It did much better in the ratings when it premiered in the UK on BBC2 on 27 March 1978.
Premise
All You Need Is Cash is a series of skits and gags that illustrate the fictional Rutles story, closely following the chronology of the Beatles’ career.
Cast
- Eric Idle as Dirk McQuickly, a parody of Paul McCartney; as The Narrator, a parody of Alan Whicker; and as Stanley J. Krammerhead III, Jr., occasional visiting professor of applied narcotics at the University of Please Yourself, California
- Neil Innes as Ron Nasty, a parody of John Lennon
- John Halsey as Barry Wom (Barrington Womble), a parody of Ringo Starr
- Ricky Fataar as Stig O’Hara, a parody of George Harrison
- Michael Palin as Eric Manchester, Rutle Corp. Press Agent & Lawyer, a parody of Derek Taylor
- George Harrison as The Interviewer
- Bianca Jagger as Martini McQuickly
- John Belushi as Ron Decline, the most feared promoter in the world, a parody of Allen Klein
- Dan Aykroyd as Brian Thigh, ex-record producer who turned down the Rutles, just as Decca had turned down the Beatles, a parody of Dick Rowe
- Gilda Radner as Mrs. Emily Pules
- Bill Murray as Bill Murray the K., a parody of Murray the K.
- Gwen Taylor as Mrs. Iris Mountbatten (Leggy’s mother) / Chastity, a parody of Yoko Ono
- Ron Wood as a Hell’s Angel
- Terence Bayler as Leggy Mountbatten, a parody of Brian Epstein
- Henry Woolf as Arthur Sultan, the Surrey Mystic, a parody of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
- Jeannette Charles as a Queen of the United Kingdom
- Mick Jagger as himself (uncredited)
- Paul Simon as himself (uncredited)
- Roger McGough as himself (uncredited)
- Ollie Halsall as Leppo, the “fifth Rutle” (ala Zeppo, the fourth Marx Brother), a parody of the so-called “fifth Beatle”, Stuart Sutcliffe
- Barry Cryer as Dick Jaws, a partial parody of music publisher and singer Dick James
- Frank Williams as record producer Archie Macaw, a partial parody of George Martin
- Penelope Tree as Stig’s wife, a partial parody of Harrison’s ex-girlfriend Pattie Boyd
The Rutles (alternately titled Meet The Rutles) is a soundtrack album to the 1978 telemovie All You Need Is Cash. The album contains 14 of the tongue-in-cheek pastiches of Beatles songs that were featured in the film.
The primary creative force of the Rutles‘ music was Neil Innes, the sole composer and arranger of the songs. In the late 1960s, Innes had been the “seventh” member of Monty Python as well as one of the main artists behind the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, who had been featured in the real Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour film performing “Death Cab for Cutie“.
Innes credits the three musicians he recruited to assist him on the project as having been important in helping him capture the feel of the Beatles. Guitarist/singer Ollie Halsall and drummer John Halsey had played together in the groups Timebox and Patto. Multi-instrumentalist Ricky Fataar had played with the Flames before joining the Beach Boys in the early 1970s.
Eric Idle, who devised the Rutles concept and co-wrote the film, did not play or sing on any of the recordings; he offered to help, but had recently had an appendectomy, so he was encouraged to recuperate instead. George Harrison, having encouraged Idle and Innes to make a film that satirised the Beatles’ history, and lent them archival footage for inclusion in the film, facilitated the album’s release by introducing them to the chairman of Warner Bros. Records, Mo Ostin.
The pastiches mimic the Beatles’ sound to the degree that a 1978 Beatles bootleg, Indian Rope Trick, included the Rutles’ “Cheese and Onions”, attributing it to John Lennon. In the early 1980s, Innes was accused by one American Beatle fan of stealing unreleased Beatles tracks to use in the film; this was based on a recording of “Cheese and Onions” obtained by the fan which he believed to be by John Lennon. When the recording was played to Innes, he was amused to discover that it was actually his own demo of the song.
Innes was taken to court by the owners of the Beatles’ catalogue, alleging copyright infringement of their songs. Innes had to testify under oath that he had not listened to the songs at all while composing the Rutles’ songs, but had created them completely originally based on what he remembered various Beatles songs sounding like at different times.
Songs
The album contains parodies of Beatles numbers such as “Ouch!” (“Help!“), “Hold My Hand” (“I Want to Hold Your Hand“, “All My Loving“, “She Loves You” and “Eight Days a Week“), “With a Girl Like You” (“If I Fell“), “Living in Hope” (“Don’t Pass Me By“), “Love Life” (“All You Need is Love“), “Good Times Roll” (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“), “Nevertheless” (“Within You Without You“, “The Inner Light“), “Let’s Be Natural” (“Julia” and “Dear Prudence“), “Another Day” (“Martha My Dear“), “Piggy in the Middle” (“I Am the Walrus“) and “Doubleback Alley” (“Penny Lane“). The CD reissue includes “Blue Suede Schubert” (“Roll Over Beethoven“), “It’s Looking Good” (“I’m Looking Through You“) and “Between Us” (“Devil in His Heart“). “Get Up and Go” was not on the original LP – allegedly after Lennon warned Innes that it resembled “Get Back” much too closely and might prompt the music publisher, ATV Music, to sue – but was included on the CD reissue.
All songs were written by Neil Innes. Despite having received Lennon’s and Harrison’s blessing for the project, however, he was forced by ATV Music to credit some of the songs to Lennon–McCartney–Innes. In 1996, Innes said of this stipulation: “George occasionally attempts to get the rights back for me, but it’s not high up on anyone’s agenda. I’ve stopped sulking about it”. The liner notes of the album give the names of the “Warner Brothers” as “Stan & Reg”.
The only song from the film not on the soundtrack is “You Need Feet”, which is not a Rutles song. Originally released in 1958, it was written and performed by comedian Bernard Bresslaw and was a parody of the 1958 Max Bygraves hit “You Need Hands”.
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