By 
YEAH YEAH YEAH to coin a sentence: I know, I know, another evaluation of The Beatles movie ‘A Hard Day’s Night’
Nearly fifty-four years old and the subject of countless criticisms, does the world really need one more? Well, after seeing it on TV for the umpteenth time over Christmas, I decided another set of observations wouldn’t hurt. After all, what’s wrong with celebrating eighty-seven minutes of such joy once again?
Having seen ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at least once every eighteen months for the last forty years, I thought there was nothing new for me, but like the brilliant rock album and the great movie (which it certainly is), there is often something new to discover. Much of the backstory was discovered on the DVD edition of two games I received as a birthday present about five years ago, and while the “making of” documentary is fascinating and informative, it also served to shatter one of my longstanding illusions. . of the movie. Over the years, when walking down the platform at Liverpool Lime Street Station, I would always conjure up the image of the Fab Four being chased down the same pavement in the opening scene, only to discover that it wasn’t filmed there, but in the Marylebone station and the train ride. The first twenty minutes of the film is not from Liverpool to London, but from Marylebone to Minehead, leaving me with mixed feelings as to whether this was information I really needed to be aware of.
But no matter how many times I watch it (and this last time I spotted a couple of continuity errors that had never caught my eye before) I’m always captivated by the sheer exuberance of how the Beatles perform as actors. To clarify ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, it breaks completely with the tradition established in the films made up to that moment by Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, since more than playing singing characters, it is the Beatles themselves that gives ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, its documentary style and in a story that sees them travel to London for a television appearance, also provides insight into the life they were living at the time. The film, intelligently directed by Richard Lester, shows each member with a clearly individual personality that they would maintain from that moment until practically the day they parted ways: John (rebellious), Paul (romantic), George (thinker), Ringo (Jester), but in 1964, before a dark side of ‘Beatlemania’ unfolded, their camaraderie is light-hearted and a far, far cry from the feisty, quarrelsome people they became when they parted ways in front of the cameras. for ‘Let It Be’. only five years later.
In early 1964, however, manager Brian Epstein’s hand was still at the helm, evident in his clean-shaven, collar-and-tie appearance, with hard drugs, political pronouncements, and mysticism still somewhat removed. Music also has to undergo the transformation that occurred once Bob Dylan and the psychedelics replaced Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran as Lennon and McCartney’s main songwriting influences; however, the soundtrack to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is still a blast. ‘If I Fell’, ‘Tell Me Why’ and ‘And I Love Her’ all have great melodies and from the start as songwriters they are way ahead of the field, while on the last song the stunning classical guitar arrangement shows that the Beatles were quite capable of eclecticism in their own right.
An oddity of the film given that it is their film, is that the name of the group is never mentioned: ‘The Beatles’ appears on Ringo’s drums and in the helicopter in the final scene, but everywhere the excellent script, written by the playwright Alun. Owen, contains comical references to his fame and adds several inside jokes, the most obvious being the frequent comments made to Paul’s grandfather, who is traveling with them, about him being “a clean old man”. Portrayed by Wilfrid Brambell, this is a reference to the character Brambell was making famous on the sitcom ‘Steptoe and Son’, where he was often labeled a ‘dirty old man’. After spending time with The Beatles, Owen manages to give his script a great deal of authenticity, revisiting expressions the group used like “grotty” and “mocker” that had never been used before. What was a surprise when watching the movie recently was a scene on a backstage staircase where the road manager (played by Norman Rossington) says to John Lennon as a chorus goes by, ‘Put those girls under Lennon or he’ll kill you. I will tell your Mother.’
It seems an oddly insensitive line, particularly as Lennon had lost his mother in a tragic car accident six years earlier and in view of the torturous songs he wrote about her (‘Mother’, My Mummy’s Dead’), especially his impressive solo. . album ‘Plastic Ono Band’ in 1970.
But let’s not leave ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ on a somber note: it’s too upbeat and infectious for that.
If you have seen the movie, watch it again and dare not to smile. If you’ve somehow never seen it, what a treat awaits you: a wonderful opportunity to witness many of the reasons why people remain captivated by The Beatles to this day.