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Monthly Beatles Movie Discussion: A Hard Day's Night (self.beatles)

submitted by InUtero7

I'm the person doing the bi-weekly album discussions but there seemed to be interest in movie discussions too. I planned on doing those still but just wanted to wait until there was a couple album discussions and song discussions.

I just posted the second album discussion and someone (I forgot their username) just posted the second or third weekly song discussion so here comes the monthly movie discussion.

(From Wikipedia)

A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British 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.[3] 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.[4] The film is credited as being one of the most influential musical films of all time, inspiring numerous spy films, The Monkees' television show and pop music videos.

Discuss your thoughts, share your criticisms, share your memories, etc

Please no downvoting unless someone is being a jerk.

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[–]InUtero7[S] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I had not personally seen this until a few months ago. I really enjoyed it. The music sequences were great and I can definitely see how those and the other videos of songs The Beatles led to music videos being created.

My favorite part of AHDN is the dialogue especially in the beginning on the train.

AHDN is definitely a great and funny movie whether you like The Beatles' music or not.

If I had give it a score I'd say 10/10. Not perfect by why not? It was a great movie.

[–]FriedPhilipMeet The Beatles! 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I love the train dialogue aswell! "Hey, who's..." "WHO'S THAT LITTLE OLD MAN!" "Well, who is he?"

[–]gonesnake 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Compared to other movies starring musicians, which were usual made to sell the soundtracks, this one is actually pretty good. Cracking dialogue, decent performances from not just the surrounding cast but the Beatles themselves and a great central idea: what's it like to be in this band at this moment?
There was a fair amount of rule breaking going on here and it still looks pretty good considering the 'how long will this fad last' nature of the budget.
And, of course, that songs are great.

[–]MrSmoke2Much 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think it did a great job of capturing "Beatlemania".

Centuries from now, one will obviously look back upon the Beatles and the times, but this movie, almost accidently, really gave a good day-in-the-life view into the crazyness.

Also, funny bit of narrative from Ringo on the "That Boy" spot. He was sick drunk from the night before the shoot and they basically said, just meander around and we'll shoot footage.

LOL

This Boy

[–]peaceasy -1 points0 points  (3 children)

Seen it probably 79 times now, its great. John Lennon hates it, and I can see why. The director was mediocre at best. At the end of the day the soundtrack is the best part about it, but I could watch it every day. If you're a Beatlemaniac, its a 9/10. If you're not, its a 3/10

[–]InUtero7[S] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

According to Harrison in Anthology John enjoyed making the movies.

[–]peaceasy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

According to John's playboy interview the year he died, he did not like it, maybe he enjoyed it at the time. I was just saying when he looked back at it he didn't like it.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A Hard Day's Night as a film is studied and has been studied by film students since it was released. The film itself is a part of the Criterion Collection. I feel like "mediocre at best" is a little much.

I couldn't find in the 1980 interview where he talks about not liking the film, would you mind linking it for me? Is this the same interview http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1980.jlpb.beatles.html?