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A Hard Day's Night
Once upon a time a long time ago, there were four musicians from Liverpool, England named John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr who formed a rock and roll band called The Beatles and changed the face of music forever. On February 9, 1964, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and were suddenly the biggest stars on the planet. It wasn't long before Hollywood came calling, wanting their cut of this cash cow and the result was what was basically the first ever music video, a little something called A Hard Day's Night.
Under the direction of a practically unknown director named Richard Lester, moviegoers were treated to a fictionalized look at two days in the life of the group as they travel by train to London for an important television appearance. On the train they encounter Paul's grandfather (Wilfred Brambell), a nutty old geezer who is baffled by the boys' sudden fame but is not above cashing in on it when he can either.
Screenwriter Alan Olun actually received an Oscar nomination for his slightly exaggerated look at this musical phenomenon that turned the entire music industry on its ear and had teenager girls all over the world going out of their minds. Olun takes a very slender plot thread of the boys getting ready for a big show and looking out for Paul's grandfather into a breezy, free-form look at celebrity obsession and how these boys attempted to understand and embrace it at the same time, effectively framed by the Beatles' incredible music.
The unabashed fun and joy in this film lies in its simplicity...there is no attempt to produce some kind of elaborate musical extravaganza here with complex plotting and sophisticated characters. Lester and Olun make no attempt to turn the boys into actors...they do give them lines to memorize which they do and with the aid of some imaginative staging, let the boys' personal appeal and their incredible music do all the work.
Lester lets us know what we're in for from the very opening scene which features the boys being chased to the train station by thousands of screaming girls, while the title tune fills the audio. There's no attempt at realistic transitions into musical numbers here either. There's one scene near the beginning of the film where grandpa and the boys are on the train in a sleeping car and, in the blink of the eye, all of sudden, all of their instruments just magically appear in the train car so they can perform a song on the train...with two teenage girls watching with their nosed pressed against the glass of the car.
Of course, the classic songs on display here will conjure up all kinds of memories for those of us old enough to remember the sensation that was the Beatles. In addition to the title tune, we are also treated to "Tell Me Why", "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love", "If I Fell", and "I Should Have Known Better". A movie musical curio from an era in music and movies that's gone forever but shouldn't be forgotten. This movie was all kinds of fun.
Once upon a time a long time ago, there were four musicians from Liverpool, England named John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr who formed a rock and roll band called The Beatles and changed the face of music forever. On February 9, 1964, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and were suddenly the biggest stars on the planet. It wasn't long before Hollywood came calling, wanting their cut of this cash cow and the result was what was basically the first ever music video, a little something called A Hard Day's Night.
Under the direction of a practically unknown director named Richard Lester, moviegoers were treated to a fictionalized look at two days in the life of the group as they travel by train to London for an important television appearance. On the train they encounter Paul's grandfather (Wilfred Brambell), a nutty old geezer who is baffled by the boys' sudden fame but is not above cashing in on it when he can either.
Screenwriter Alan Olun actually received an Oscar nomination for his slightly exaggerated look at this musical phenomenon that turned the entire music industry on its ear and had teenager girls all over the world going out of their minds. Olun takes a very slender plot thread of the boys getting ready for a big show and looking out for Paul's grandfather into a breezy, free-form look at celebrity obsession and how these boys attempted to understand and embrace it at the same time, effectively framed by the Beatles' incredible music.
The unabashed fun and joy in this film lies in its simplicity...there is no attempt to produce some kind of elaborate musical extravaganza here with complex plotting and sophisticated characters. Lester and Olun make no attempt to turn the boys into actors...they do give them lines to memorize which they do and with the aid of some imaginative staging, let the boys' personal appeal and their incredible music do all the work.
Lester lets us know what we're in for from the very opening scene which features the boys being chased to the train station by thousands of screaming girls, while the title tune fills the audio. There's no attempt at realistic transitions into musical numbers here either. There's one scene near the beginning of the film where grandpa and the boys are on the train in a sleeping car and, in the blink of the eye, all of sudden, all of their instruments just magically appear in the train car so they can perform a song on the train...with two teenage girls watching with their nosed pressed against the glass of the car.
Of course, the classic songs on display here will conjure up all kinds of memories for those of us old enough to remember the sensation that was the Beatles. In addition to the title tune, we are also treated to "Tell Me Why", "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love", "If I Fell", and "I Should Have Known Better". A movie musical curio from an era in music and movies that's gone forever but shouldn't be forgotten. This movie was all kinds of fun.