By John J. Puccio (October 2, 2002)
When the Beatles burst onto the musical scene in the early sixties, they were primarily a hit with younger teens. As I had just graduated from high school at the time, I along with a multitude of other young adults thought ourselves too sophisticated for the likes of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in 1964, at the height of their newfound popularity, the Beatles made "A Hard Day's Night" and everything changed.
Within the next few years, the British sensations went from teenage heartthrobs to everybody's favorite singing group with theme albums like "Rubber Soul," "Revolver," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Magical Mystery Tour," Abbey Road," and "Let It Be." They would never again have the critical success with a live-action motion picture they had with "A Hard Day's Night," but that obviously didn't affect their careers.Directed by Richard Lester, who would go on to score further successes with "The Three Musketeers" and the "Superman" sequels, "A Hard Day's Night" is a zany, no-holds-barred musical comedy that follows the real-life Beatles on a whirlwind fling through England on their way to a recording date, with teenage girls following them wherever they go. Don't look for a plot; there isn't one. Lester throws out all the stops, using every cinematic device available to him at the time to produce a virtual kaleidoscope of effects at an almost dizzying pace.
Along on the ride with John, Paul, George, and Ringo are Paul's grandfather and the troupe's two managers, who barely hold the quartet in containment. The grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) is especially a hoot, such a "clean old man," constantly getting into trouble as an instigator and a ladies' man. Along the way, the Beatles get to sing a host of their most popular songs up until that time.
The film is filled with clever quips and sight gags, mostly at the expense of a totally square, early sixties world. An interviewer asks John, "Tell me, how did you find America?" and John answers, "Turned left at Greenland." Another interviewer asks Ringo, "Do you think these haircuts have come to stay?" and Ringo responds, "Well, this one has, you know. It's stayed on good and proper."
As I've said, the director uses every filmmaking gimmick at his disposal to do his work, from crane and helicopter shots to low and wide angles, with a rapid-fire editing that would make today's MTV blush. Lester also encouraged the boys to improvise, and it's clear that much of what the "Fab Four" say and do was made up on the spot. It's all a part of the exuberance of the event. From time to time a little satire intrudes on the silliness of the antics, like a scene in a TV ad agency that goes awry, but most of the time the story is content with madcap, screwball comedy.Among the songs featured in the film are, of course, the title tune, "A Hard Day's Night," along with "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell in Love With You," "Can't Buy Me Love," "And I Love Her," "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You," and a climactic medley of earlier Beatles' hits like "Tell Me Why" and "She Loves You."
There are two major running gags in the film. The first is the continual reference to Paul's grandfather as a "clean old man." The deal here is that the actor in the part, Wilfrid Brambell, played a dirty old man in the 1962 British TV sitcom, "Steptoe and Son" (a series translated to America as "Sanford and Son"), so this is a take on his earlier role. Interestingly, Brambell was only fifty-two when he played the grandfather; such is the magic of movies. The second gag is that while the Beatles are mobbed by female teenage fans wherever they go, they are hardly recognized by adults. When Ringo is arrested for suspicious behavior and taken to a police station, none of the officers know who he is, even when they have a photograph of the Beatles right in front of them!
It's hard to estimate the effect the film had on the future of movies, television, and society in general. Certainly, the group and this particular film helped generate new musical trends, TV imitators like "The Monkeys," numerous swinging sixties' movies, and, naturally, clothing and hair styles; maybe the film even inspired the hyped-up MTV phenomenon that we all
currently know and love. "A Hard Day's Night" may seem a bit dated and even stereotyped nowadays, almost forty years on, but the early sixties were probably already dated by the time the film premiered, and any clichés you may notice were not clichés at the time they were invented for the film. "A Hard Day's Night" remains a classic; there's little else to say.Video:
The picture is presented in a newly restored and remastered print measuring about 1.74:1 anamorphic size across a normal television screen. The black-and-white transfer is good, to be sure, but still not spectacular. I suspect it's as good as it ever was, but, frankly, the original theatrical exhibition print may not have been spectacular to begin with. In any case, the image is clean and free of grain, but contrasts are not always well played up and definition is not always perfectly sharp. I suppose these are quibbles, since it mostly looks fine.
Audio:
The sound has been remastered, too, in Dolby Digital 5.1. As one would expect, the songs come up best, rechanneled in stereo, with a wide spread across the front speakers but not a lot of center or rear-channel action. The songs appear as though they were recorded in an entirely different acoustic environment from the regular dialogue, which is easy to understand, since they were. But the difference is sometimes so great as to be jarring. Oh, well, it's the songs and music that we want to sound best anyway, so it all works out, and during the final "Showtime" medley of Beatles hits, all five channels open up nicely if somewhat unrealistically. The transient response is quite good, the percussion showing up nicely, although there isn't a lot of sonic information at the extremes, the deep bass or the highest treble, so some of the sparkle is missing. Still, it's decent sound compared to its original monaural, and sound that will fill the room and rock the rafters. Just don't expect modern, digital CD quality sonics from sound that's been touched up this much.
Extras:
The bonus materials on this special edition are a little different from those you find on other such sets. Almost every extra item is an interview of one kind or another. Disc one of the two-disc set contains the widescreen presentation of the movie
with its Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, plus a thirty-six minute documentary called "Things They Said Today," which contains recent interviews with almost every surviving member of the filmmaking crew except the two remaining Beatles. Then there are some DVD-ROM features, including the screenplay, a remembrance scrapbook, roundtable discussions, and a Web site archive; and a measly fourteen scene selections. English and French are the spoken language options, with English captions for the hearing impaired. Regrettably, there are no audio commentaries to accompany the film.Disc two contains the bulk of the interviews. Among them are ones titled "Their Production Will Be Second To None": Interviews with the filmmakers; "With the Beatles": Interviews with the cast;
"Working Like A Dog": Interviews with the production crew; "Listen To the Music Playing in My Head": An interview with Sir George Martin, the film's musical director; "Such a Clean Old Man: Memories of Wilfrid Brambell"; and a host of other such individual interviews. They make for fascinating listening, but they may be a bit extended and even redundant for a lot of viewers, who would rather have heard more from the Beatles themselves and more of their music.
Parting Thoughts:
Director Lester and the Beatles would go on to do "Help" wherein they almost but not quite recaptured the zany feeling they created in "A Hard Day's Night." But it proved a bit too much even for the Beatles to duplicate. If you've never seen the movie, you might do yourself a favor and give it a try. If you have seen it, you're probably already a fan.
John J. Puccio rates this DVD as follows: Video=8 , Audio=7, Extras= 7, Film value= 8 From DVD Town, http://www.dvdtown.com/review/beatlestheaharddaysnight/10585/1286/
