Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Rutles Anthology Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 10, 2013

Would we ever have had the delights of 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap without the efforts of 1978’s The Rutles: All You Need is Cash? It’s debatable, of course, but there’s little debate that Eric Idle and Lorne Michael’s television enterprise created a new subgenre in the world of comedic television, namely the mockumentary built around the lives and careers of a fictional music group. The Rutles: All You Need is Cash crashed rather spectacularly on American television when it premiered to an almost nonexistent audience in the spring of 1978, but over the years the project accrued a certain luster and cult following that have made it one of the highlights of Idle’s post-Monty Python’s Flying Circus career. The Beatles might seem to be an odd subject for parody, at least in the era in which The Rutles: All You Need is Cash first premiered. First of all, The Fab Four themselves always seemed to have a sense of humor about themselves (John Lennon’s sometimes portentous pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding), and it’s always harder to make fun of someone—or in this case a group—when the subjects themselves aren’t above self deprecating humor. But perhaps even more pointedly, by 1978 The Beatles had been off the main radar of the general public for close to a decade. This may account for the lackluster showing of this special’s original airing, but that dearth of an audience doesn’t mean that the comedy in The Rutles: All You Need is Cash is any less enjoyable. The special is full of spot on musical parodies of The Beatles, and it also is chock full of that kind of patented dry humor for which the British are justifiably lionized. The film exists as a kind of time capsule that captures not just Eric Idle and some of his Monty Python kin in action, but also one of the most celebrated cast members from the early days of Saturday Night Live, including such talents as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. Oh, and a guy named George Harrison or something like that shows up just for good measure.

While those with at least a passing knowledge of the by now iconic history of The Beatles will glean the most from The Rutles: All You Need is Cash’s send up, there is still plenty of comedy to be had for those who wouldn’t know a Ringo from a Pete Best. This non-specific aspect gets off to a silly but still funny start with two bits, the first of which includes a crawl announced in portentous tones by a narrator who becomes more and more flummoxed as the thing speeds up until he sounds like one of those guys who lists the side effects of drugs in about a nanosecond at the end of pharmaceutical commercials. The same gag, albeit in visual form, follows, as Eric Idle, as a pretentious news reporter, starts relaying the history of The Rutles as the truck carrying the camera filming him starts speeding up, causing him to have to run after it as he keeps reporting.

The comedy in this piece isn’t quite as in your face or absurd as it tended to be in any given Monty Python’s Flying Circus episode, but it’s rather finely tuned and manages to almost perfectly skewer some of the sillier aspects of Beatlemania. A lot of the success of the special has to be attributed to the absolutely fantastic musical parodies created by Neil Innes. Innes had actually worked with The Beatles, when he and his Bonzo Dog Band performed “Death Cab for Cutie” (co-produced by one Paul McCartney) in Magical Mystery Tour. Innes’ very smart reformulations of several huge Beatles hits are a highlight of All You Need is Cash. He captures both the youthful insouciance of early Beatles hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (which becomes “Hold My Hand”) and the trippier fare that came later in the band’s career (“Get Back” becomes “Get Up and Go”). This is pastiche of the highest order and remains one of All You Need is Cash’s most notable (no pun intended) accomplishments.

All You Need is Cash is awash in fantastic cameos. Some of them are quite brief (that’s Bianca Jagger as “Yoko” in the takeoff on the marriage of John Lennon), while some are longer (Bianca’s former husband Mick appears as himself, recounting his first interaction with The Rutles, which of course changed his life). One of the funnier bits includes the aforementioned Harrison as an interviewer in a funny sequence which send up actual routing of Apple Headquarters by avaricious fans back in the day. Perhaps fittingly, it was the music—released on an Original Soundtrack album which garnered a Grammy nomination—which may have led to the resurgence of interest in All You Need is Cash. The humor here is almost always enjoyable, but it’s just as undeniably often fairly lightweight. It’s the amazing sound-alike songs that may remain the most memorable aspect to this still appealing mockumentary.

The Rutles Anthology Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Rutles Anthology is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1 and 1.33:1 (note that only All You Need is Cash is presented in high definition—see the supplements section for more information). Given reasonable expectations for what a vintage television outing shot on 16mm should look like, most fans should be quite pleased with The Rutles; All You Need is Cash. While colors have faded a bit, and while there may have been some moderate denoising done, there is still a suitable soft and grainy appearance to the footage here which accurately reproduces (and some might argue improves upon) the original look of the broadcast. The interlaced presentation does present a few transitory combing problems in sequences with quick motion (curiously seemingly more apparent in the black and white footage than the color). This has also been reframed from the original (completely) 1.33:1 television airing, but no egregious cropping issues turn up, though occasionally things like the tops of heads are missing (see the screenshot of Mick Jagger for an example).

The Rutles Anthology Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Rutles: All You Need is Cash is presented with both a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix as well as an LPCM 2.0 track, though you'd probably be hard pressed to spot a whale of a lot of difference between them. The 5.1 track is almost totally anchored to the front, even in the musical sequences. There are occasional slight surround effects, curiously more noticeable with regard to some passing ambient sounds, as when Idle as the interviewer is out and about in various locations. Fidelity is nonetheless great on both of these tracks, and the Innes penned music sounds fantastic. In a kind of amusing note, whoever authored the optional English subtitles couldn't quite understand people some of the time and simply defaults to "indistinguishable" when, for example, Mick Jagger is speaking quite clearly (at least to my ears). For the record, the DVD contains standard Dolby options.

The Rutles Anthology Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary/Interview with Eric Idle. The title of this is a tad confusing and may indicate there's an easter egg hidden here which is oddly authored/hidden. The first time I accessed this, it did in fact start up the commentary track (see below). The second time, after I toggled to the left, this actually accessed a brief snippet (480i; 1:30), offering an alternate take of a bit with Eric Idle and Dan Ackroyd. If you have both a standalone player and a computer Blu-ray drive, one other kind of interesting difference crops up. On my standalone player (PS3), when I toggled to the left, it appeared the ticket stub slightly lit up (though not by much). On the other hand, in my computer drive, the menu option for the Commentary/Interview merely changed color from red to blue.


• SNL Rutland Weekend Television Sketch (480i; 4:55) is a very funny bit featuring a very young Lorne Michaels.


• Commentary with Eric Idle is hosted by Jonathan Gross of VSC. Gross announces this as an "interview", which may account for the title mentioned above, but Idle seems less interested in answering Gross' questions than in forging ahead with his own agenda, which includes a lot of background information and some funny anecdotal reminiscences.
• Can't Buy Me Lunch Trailer (480i; 1:20) is contained on the DVD (not on the Blu-ray).


• Can't Buy Me Lunch (480i; 56:02) is also contained (only) on the DVD. This 2002 follow-up mockumentary revisits the Prefab Four, recycling quite a bit of footage from All You Need is Cash, along with several new interview segments (none with The Rutles). This supposed sequel has been pretty soundly criticized by both fans and critics as being a crass and craven attempt to rake in a few more dollars from The Rutles franchise, and while that probably can't be denied, there are some at least relatively amusing bits scattered throughout the proceedings here, including appearances by a really eclectic group of people, everyone from David Bowie to Salman Rushdie. Video quality is really surprisingly good here, despite being SD. Unfortunately, the extras included on the standalone DVD release of this title from several years ago have not been ported over to this release.

The Rutles Anthology Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Beatles fans will no doubt get the most out of the humor of All You Need is Cash, especially with regard to the incredible song parodies crafted by Neil Innes which, to my mind (and ears), remain this mockumentary's most singular achievement. The humor is kind of hit or miss, but there's quite a bit of amusing content along the way, and Idle makes for an appealingly clueless host-reporter. This package is kind of odd in a number of ways as enumerated above, but Rutles fans should certainly enjoy it. Recommended.