not a bad movie

People make the mistake of expecting a slickly-made, tightly-plotted feature film.

"Magical Mystery Tour" is really just a series of (staggeringly good) songs, surrounded by light-hearted, unpretentious skits, and low intensity, take-them-or-leave-them set pieces. It was made as a one-off TV special for Boxing Day, for a torpid, overfed and at least half-drunk audience whose powers of sustained concentration were reasonably assumed to be extremely limited.

Judged by the appropriate criteria, it really isn't such a bad little film. I, for one, can think of far less enjoyable ways of spending 55 minutes.

I first saw the movie at a midnight movie showing in the early 1980s. It's not as bad as many people say it is. I think one reason it failed was poor timing. If it had come out later, it might have been a hit. Another reason is that it was first shown on TV at a time when most people had only tiny black and white TVs. It looks better on a large movie screen.