All You Need is Cash: 1978 Mockumentary by Eric Idle (Monty Python) Satires The Beatles

Sev­er­al weeks back, Col­in Mar­shall won­dered whether Pink Floy­d’s 1972 con­cert among the ruins of Pom­peii (watch it here) pro­vid­ed some inspi­ra­tion for Rob Rein­er’s 1984 satir­i­cal film, This is Spinal Tap. (Remem­ber the clas­sic Stone­henge scene?) Per­haps the same could be asked about All You Need is Cash, the 1978 mock­u­men­tary that fol­lows the musi­cal career of The Rut­les, whose resem­blance to The Bea­t­les was pure­ly and entire­ly inten­tion­al.

Eric Idle, of Mon­ty Python fame, direct­ed the film, along with Gary Weis, a film­mak­er for Sat­ur­day Night Live. That pret­ty much guar­an­teed some good satire and clas­sic cameo appear­ances by Michael Palin, Gil­da Rad­ner, John Belushi, Bill Mur­ray, Al Franken and Dan Aykroyd — not to men­tion Ron­nie Wood, Mick Jag­ger, Paul Simon, and, yes, even George Har­ri­son. (It’s worth recall­ing that Har­ri­son became tight with the Mon­ty Python crew, and finan­cial­ly backed Mon­ty Python’s Life of Bri­an, which hit the­aters the next year.)

When All You Need is Cash aired on NBC, it kind of bombed, but it lat­er rebound­ed on the BBC. And today the film gets a 90% on Rot­ten Toma­toes’ “Tomatome­ter,” a sol­id score.

Part 1 appears above, and here we give you the remain­ing parts: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Get your high­er-res­o­lu­tion copy on DVD right here.


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