Tagline: The Beatles starring in their first full-length, hilarious action-packed film.
A Hard Day’s Night movie storyline. The Beatles’ first charming, wacky, original and impish movie was released not long after the Fab Four’s landmark debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. At first thought to be a cross-promotional exploitation of their phenomenal ‘Beatlemania’, even critics agreed that it was an inventive, funny and ingenious musical comedy that later helped to inspire the music video craze.
Innovative American director Richard Lester used the same type of goofy humor and imaginative visuals from his earlier experimental, grainy, hand-held short film, The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1959) starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, along with black-and-white film stock and a semi-documentary style.
Screenwriter Alun Owen based his Oscar-nominated script on the group’s frenzied popularity, supplemented by musical interludes of concert footage. The frantic film documents thirty-six hours of the group’s life as they are on their way to London for a TV performance, marked by the memorable opening intercut to the title song – as the Liverpool group is chased by screaming, hysterical teenage girls while they board a train.
The rock-and-roll stars express their charming, laid-back, and saucy personalities in this slice-of-life film that fictionalized their lives — best exemplified during their interview scenes with their dry, playful one-liner responses (Reporter: “Are you a mod, or a rocker?” Ringo: “Um, no. I’m a mocker”). Wilfrid Brambell also plays Ringo’s “very clean,” eccentric grandfather who serves as the film’s trouble-maker.
The Academy’s membership unjustly overlooked the now-classic songs in the film’s un-nominated soundtrack in favor of those from Mary Poppins (“Chim Chim Cher-ee”), Dear Heart, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Robin and the 7 Hoods (“My Kind of Town”), and Where Love Has Gone. However, George Martin, the Beatles’ producer often recognized as the “Fifth Beatle,” was nominated for Best Adapted Score.
The Beatles as a group would later star in Help! (1965), Yellow Submarine (1968) and the documentary that showed their breakup, Let It Be (1970).
Other ‘British invasion’ bands copied this work with their own film projects, such as the Dave Clark Five’s Having a Wild Weekend (aka Catch Us If You Can) (1965). The Monkees’ mid-60’s TV-show was also an offshoot of this film.
A Hard Day’s Night is a 1964 British musical comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring the Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists. The film portrays several days in the lives of the group.
The film was a financial and critical success. Time magazine rated it as one of the all-time great 100 films. British critic Leslie Halliwell described it as a “comic fantasia with music; an enormous commercial success with the director trying every cinematic gag in the book” and awarded it a full four stars. The film is credited as being one of the most influential of all musical films, inspiring numerous spy films, the Monkees’ television show and pop music videos. The British Film Institute ranked it the 88th greatest British film of the 20th
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Directed by: Richard Lester
Starring: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin, Victor Spinetti, Richard Vernon, Anna Quayle
Screenplay by: Alun Owen
Cinematography by: Gilbert Taylor
Film Editing by: John Jympson
Costume Design by: Julie Harris, Dougie Millings
Art Direction by: Ray Simm
MPAA Rating: G for all audience.
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: July 6, 1964 (UK), August 11, 1964 (US)
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