My 5-year-old niece and I lend a helping hand to the Beatles in their second film, the full-color presentation of Help! Ringo becomes the target of an Indian (dots, not feathers) cult of Kali (or Kah-ili, as they say), probably still smarting from the drubbing they took from Indiana Jones thirty years before.

Listen as I identify some of the cars (and tanks), and explain some of the background surrounding filming.

The Coen Brothers succeed in creating an almost magical pastiche of 1930s crime and ancient Greek epic and even make it funny, with George Clooney as the fast-talking leader of a gang of escaped convicts crossing Depression-era Mississippi to get home and ending up in a number of tight spots. I manage to avoid singing along by jabbering incessantly. I compare the story to the Homeric epic on which it is (very loosely) based as well as to Sullivan’s Travels, where it gets its name. And I explain various 1930s customs, manners, cars, and secret organizations whose name I need not mention.

The Coen Brothers succeed in creating an almost magical pastiche of 1930s crime and ancient Greek epic and even make it funny. I compare the story to the Homeric epic on which it is (very loosely) based as well as to Sullivan’s Travels, where it gets its name. And I explain various 1930s customs, manners, cars, and secret organizations whose name I need not mention.