With George Harrison’s opening chord on his twelve-string Rickenbacker, A Hard Day’s Night (1964) takes off, sweeping its audience into the zany world of what was once Beatlemania. As a twelve-year-old female in August 1964, I was as smitten of the four cute Liverpudlian lads as anyone could possibly be. Although the screenplay takes us into the cinematic lives of its young stars with its one-liners, correspondingly droll plot, and all-original songs, it is really the four Beatles’ charisma that creates what was and still is a wildly entertaining musical comedy. Their highly anticipated first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 introduced America to its first live look at the band after only having been able to read about them in teen magazines like Tiger Beat. However, the film permitted us to intimately gaze at each band member (even if they were perhaps slightly stereotyped!) and watch them interact with each other and various clueless authority figures.
My first viewing of A Hard Day’s Night was with my older cousin at the Stony Brook Drive-In in my hometown of York, Pennsylvania; however, it wasn’t as memorable as seeing it for the second time indoors at the Holiday Theater a few months later where a horde of fellow adoring fans’ infectious energy generated such heightened emotion. Luckily, unlike the live concerts’ bursts of screaming, the crowd was able to control itself, and we were all able to take in and memorize the amusing dialogue. I watched the movie one more time the following year when it was billed as a double feature with their second feature film, Help! (1965).
Those were a few heady years to be sure, culminating with a trip to JFK Stadium in Philadelphia on August 16, 1966, to see them in concert on what turned out to be their final American tour. (Now, that event was stuffed with 20,000 screaming fans!) The anticipation was almost overwhelming as my two friends and I (along with one of the most tolerant mothers of all-time) awaited a glimpse of the Fab Four as a thunderstorm threatened overhead. Fortunately, it didn’t rain on our parade, and we were treated to the stand-out opening acts of The Cyrkle (“Red Rubber Ball”) and Bobby Hebb (“Sunny”). When The Beatles finally played the tiny stage way out in the field area, we hoisted up our binoculars for closer looks. Although they performed a dozen songs, including many chart-breaking ones at that time like “Day Tripper” and “Paperback Writer,” the highlight for me was Paul’s ballad, “Yesterday.” I maintain bragging rights to this day since it’s rare to interact with people who have actually attended a Beatles concert.
My large fan club pin, $0.50 ticket stub from the Holiday Theater (1965 showing of “A Hard Day’s Night” & “Help!”), and paperback novelization
Just think: a couple years earlier, they were traveling to London for a televised show in A Hard Day’s Night. The film follows John, Paul, George, and Ringo, as they outrun a throng of fans by train, introducing us to the band’s two managers as well as Paul’s “very clean” grandfather who is a “villain, a real mixer.” Director Richard Lester arranges a few songs in-between the silliness before the band absconds from their hotel for a fun break as they romp about to “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Even at age twelve, I could imagine how restricted their lives had become due to their popularity and the relief of this brief escape as actors and musicians. The film taught me how the establishment often treats them as unruly children as they interact with various characters.
Each dapper, endearing Beatle is allotted proper screen time and assigned comedic lines that compelled me to purchase the paperback novelization of the film. I proceeded to torture my mother whenever she was trapped inside our car as she chauffeured me about. (My favorite has to be an exchange between John and a woman he encounters who insists she knows him. Further, George’s line about Ringo, “He’s very fussy about his drums, you know. They loom large in his legend” will forever live on in musical film history). And beyond that, it was just so novel to hear the British slang words and phrases as well as the charming accents. The buoyant plot carries the band from hotel room to casino to theater, all the while dealing with Paul’s mischievous grandfather. Although Ringo narrowly misses their big TV show appearance with an amusing storyline in which he is urged by said grandfather to go “parading,” all turns out well.
Background details and tons of interesting minutiae have been fussed over elsewhere – the actors, the list of songs, and the production itself — so I’ll leave that to the film scholars. There’s also a PBS making-of documentary, You Can’t Do That (1994), that I still need to see as the film was such a vital event in my childhood. For me, A Hard Day’s Night really is the perfect indescribable nostalgia capsule; the phenomenon known as The Beatles were to have such a profound effect on everything from music and film to fashion and the lexicon. Pop culture was forever altered. It was a wonderful time to be a carefree teenager immersed in the total joy that was this movie-going experience. As entertaining and influential as it was fifty years ago is a testament to the stars aligning for the band, director, and screenwriter Alun Owen.