50 years of “Help!”: Beatles boom in the mountain village

The Radstadt music store had exactly one Beatles record on display. A vinyl single with exactly one song: “Ain‘t she sweet?” Gerhard Krings drove the 20 kilometers from his home village of Obertauern to the small town in the valley to find out what music “these young men from Liverpool” actually did. He had never heard of them before. Through a job offer he found out that the four guys with the mushroom heads are so well known that they are first flown to the Bahamas and then to Obertauern for a film shoot.

The "Beatlemania" only came to Radstadt

Back in 1965, Obertauern was Terra Incognita on the world map of “Beatlemania”, the fanatical fan cult around the “Fab Four”. The songs that drove young women crazy and their parents deeply worried had not penetrated further than the Radstadt music store. At 1630 meters above sea level, surrounded by the peaks of the Radstädter Tauern, Peter Kraus came from the jukebox for a shilling and the “Original Oberkrainer” from the radio for a polka.

Until the ski schools received calls from the Beatles' management: For the ski scenes of the film “Help!” They were looking for four young ski instructors who should duplicate the Liverpool city dwellers in the snow chases.

Because in the film, various people are after Ringo Starr and thus after the entire band: At the beginning of the film, drummer Starr receives a large, mysterious ring from a beautiful, Indian-looking woman. A chase begins in which, on the one hand, the order of the Kaili is trying to kill him, as the ring bearer is the next chosen victim for them. A mad scientist is chasing Ringo and his boys at the same time, because he wants to use the ugly, red clunk to gain world domination. In between, the eastern beauty occasionally saves the life of the hunted. Part of the bizarre chase, garnished by wonderful puns, takes place in the snow. In Obertauern, Austria.

Beatles double when called

And so the phone rang in the spring of 1965 for Gerhard Krings and Herbert Lürzer. Both certified ski instructors, but both not active as such in the winter season 1964/65. Because both had completed an apprenticeship in the hotel business and were working in the catering trade at the time. During the day, Gerhard Krings operated the ski lift that carried tourists up on his parents' alpine meadow, and in the evenings he stood as a bar man behind the counter of a local hotel.

That was exactly the reason why the owner of the ski school turned to Krings and Lürzer with the film job. "It was not possible to simply assign four ski instructors, just like that in March, when the season is still full here," explains the 76-year-old Gerhard Krings. “They couldn't cancel their ski courses because of a film like that.” This reveals a lot about how exciting the fact that the “Fab Four” were coming to Obertauern was for the residents at the time: not at all.

With mushroom head wigs on the film set

"But my God," says Krings, who went to sea as a steward in the summer months, looking back. “As a young person, you like to take on challenges.” Of course, he was also attracted by the fee: a daily rate that corresponded to the monthly salary of a bank employee at the time. “They needed at least two who can speak English,” is Herbert Lürzer's explanation for choosing both of them. Because their comrades-in-arms Hans Pretscherer and Franz Bogensberger would not have mastered that at the time.

Wigs, Beatles-style clothing and a bit of a mask – that's how the four ski instructors became four pop stars on skis. Krings gave George Harrison, Lürzer turned into Paul McCartney. "To this day I haven't understood what kind of sense we were doing there," says Krings. He is sitting on a sofa in the “Kringsalm”, newly renovated for the 2014/15 winter season, in the middle of the ski area. The business and the other inns of the Krings dynasty have long been run by the children. On the wall above the senior boss are framed historical photographs: the doubles with and without the original Beatles, chatting on the set and on skis.

Full throttle on skis in the hotel lobby

For example, they had to drive into a tunnel with the “boards”. “With full smoke,” says Krings. The scene was not filmed in Obertauern, but a good 60 kilometers away, at Pass Lueg. There the street led through a tunnel. In winter, the tires of the trucks that were struggling to crawl over the pass took snow with them, which they lost in the first few meters of the tunnel. Then came stones. “We crashed onto them,” recalls Lürzer, shaking his head. He is now the owner of the “Hotel Edelweiß”, where the “Fab Four” resided with their friends at the time. Lürzer and his children have long been multiple hoteliers, restaurant and bar owners. The Lürzer clan also operates a ski school and a taxi company in Obertauern.

The now 71-year-old also remembers “the scene with the house”. Lürzer laughs when he talks about it. In the film, the Beatles race on skis into a house on one side and out on the other. "When driving in, you had to be careful not to break the Skispitzl at reception," says Lürzer. Because the problem with this scene was that the set was not perfectly prepared. Into the house at full throttle, the four of them came to a stop just before the impact. “It was a lot of fun. But I still haven't understood what it was all about. "

The second film after "A Hard Day's Night"

“We didn't want to make any more fictionalized documentaries, so not just a color version of 'A Hard Day's Night',” says director Richard Lester in a Guardian video interview on the film “Help!”. The 1964 film ironicized “Beatlemania” by showing a fictional day in the life of the four when they were followed by fanatical female fans across London. “The next logical step would have been to show her private life in a documentary,” Lester explains the genesis of the “Help!” Story. “But that was not possible – because it was not suitable for minors at the time. Or at least not by the standards of 1965. "

So if you do not want to show them again in their work or in their private life, they would have to be “passive recipients of a story or threat that comes in from the outside”. While he was thinking about a fictional story with the scriptwriters Mark Behm and Charles Wood, John, Paul, Ringo and George had spoken to him: It was “really, really important and also by Brian Epstein (Manager of the Beatles, editor's note) I wanted part of the film to take place in the Bahamas, ”says Lester with a grin. “So we wrote the Bahamas into history.” And Obertauern too – which is sold as the Swiss Alps in the film.

Concerts, musicals and multimedia shows for the “Help!” Anniversary

Why the choice now fell on Obertauern, the winter sports resort with up to six months of snow guarantee and around 100 kilometers of slopes, can no longer be reconstructed today. The only thing that counts here is that they were there and that they had a good time on site. The two-week shoot will not be celebrating its anniversary until March 2015, but in Obertauern the entire 2014/15 winter season will be dominated by John, Paul, Ringo and George. The famous cover photo of the album, on which the musicians form the letters NUJV with their arms in the flag alphabet, can be found on the toilet doors of hotels and on the glass front of the offices of the tourism association. The “Kringsalm” has christened its bar “Beatles-Bar”, there is a sculpture in the center of the village and for the actual anniversary in March a whole week dedicated to the pop pioneers: with concerts, musicals and multimedia shows.

Fifty years ago, the humble film shoot turned into a certain event. The pack of fanatical female fans did not find their way to the mountain village, but buses full of young people from the region did. "Everyone wanted to have at least one autograph," says Krings, shaking his head. The real Beatles weren't even on set during the stunt shoots. So Krings and Lürzer took out the pens. “I've signed so often, I don't even know whether I sometimes wrote my own name in Paul McCartney's imitation font.” Even when he was disguised as George Harrison, Krings had no qualms: “They came to me and asked me: George, an autograph! So they got one. "

Beatles sound: a matter of taste

He listened to the single “Ain‘t she sweet?” A few times back then. But she didn't convince him: “They were really nice guys, these Beatles. But what they have played does not necessarily have to be understood as music. "