... I know the spelling of the rival gang (The Beetles?) is presumably different, but still... Of course, we already have a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club...
There's definitely something rustling behind your curtain...
I was wondering that too, but I doubt it, because it was banned in Britain untill 1968... or something...
Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants, and slide on the ice.
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Don't forget that Paul Macartney, John Lennon etc had the opportunity to see the film in private clubs in England (exempt from the BBFC ban) and in Hamburg during their numerous tours there before their worldwide fame.
shareBut remember -- Johnny from BRMC was actually on the cover of the Sgt. Peppers-album, which came out in 1967, still one year before the English release of the film.
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I'm not sure if the Beatles actually got their name from the movie...but the "Beatles Anthology" showed the Lee Marvin speech ("We all missed you! The Beetles missed you!), seemingly suggesting the connection.
shareFrom the Wikipedia citation:
The Quarrymen went through a progression of names — "Johnny and the Moondogs", "Long John and the Beatles", "the Silver Beetles" (derived from Larry Parnes' suggestion of "Long John and the Silver Beetles") — and eventually decided on "the Beatles". There are many theories as to the origin of the name and its unusual spelling; it is usually credited to Lennon, who said that the name was a combination word-play on the insects "beetles" (as a reference to Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets) and the word "beat". Cynthia Lennon suggests that Lennon came up with the name Beatles at a "brainstorming session over a beer-soaked table in the Renshaw Hall bar...". Lennon also said, "If you turn it round it is 'les beat', which sounds French and cool."
If any of those explanations are correct, it would appear that The Wild One had little to do with their naming, and that the similarity to the secondary motorcycle group in this film is . . . uh . . . like . . . uh . . . coincidental.
While I don’t know whether either Lennon or McCartney ever saw the film, The Wild One, they would certainly be familiar with the image of Brando as Johnny Strabler which, as a poster, was an icon of the late fifties and early sixties.
Somebody, I think it was Paul, alluded to the fact that Lee Marvin's game was called the Beetles in The Wild One, a movie the Beatles admired (so apparently they saw it somehow) and that this plus the tribute to Buddy Holly's band the Crickets inspired their name (with the "beat" play on words, in some accounts suggested by Stu Sutcliffe, bassist in the circa '60 band, and inspired by both the "beat" of the music and the connotation of American Beats like Kerouac). I think this is why the Anthology film included the clips of Marvin saying the line.
shareDoes somebody in the movie say that the club is called The Beetles? It seems that when Chino (Marvin) says "all the beetles missed you" he means all the girls of the club. Beetle was a post-war term for girl; cf, for instance, Dictionary of American Slang, by Wentforth and Flexner.
shareDefinitely no connection to The Beatles. None of them even saw the movie until well after Stu came up with The Beetles (in homage to the Crickets) and John changed the spelling to Beatles (for Beat). "The Wild One" didn't play outside the U.S. until the late '60s.
shareWas this an inspiration for 'The Beatles' name... ??!
It implies that in the trivia section for this film. But I've read, more than once, that John and Paul picked the name Beatles because they liked Buddy Holly and his group was called the Crickets. And that they changed the spelling to underscore the "beat" part of their music.
They called themselves "The Silver Beetles" at one stage but I think it was more about the beat of their music,
shareThey even picked up their letter looks for their Hamburg days.
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