Oddly,
nobody actually says the word “Beatles” in their first movie. It’s not like
anyone needed to. It was clearly emblazoned across Ringo’s bass drum. Of
course, just about everyone knew who they were. Beatlemania was already a full-fledged
phenomenon that would be even further stoked with the initial release of
Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night (trailer here). Digitally restored
by Janus Films in time for its fiftieth anniversary, Lester’s iconic
introduction to the band re-releases this Friday at New York’s Film Forum.
If
you are still trying to figure out if the four lads from Liverpool were mods or
rockers, you will not get a straight answer in AHDN, but that is all part of its charm. Instead, the Beatles just
sort of be themselves as they gracefully deal with the challenges of
superstardom, while trying to keep Paul’s grandfather out of trouble (his other
grandfather). They run from hordes of screaming fans, play sound-checks, accidentally
get arrested, and generally riff off each other. It is all still breezy fun
fifty years later thanks to the wit and easy charm of Alun Owens’ screenplay
and the Beatles themselves.
Looking
back at AHDN, it is remarkable how
profoundly it shaped our perceptions of the Beatles’ personas: George is the
cerebral one, John is the snarky one, Paul is a bit of a pushover, and Ringo is
a goof. It also established a deceptively formula format that has proved exceedingly
difficult to emulate, as a host of meet the band box-office duds proved (Spice World, anyone?). To be fair, it is
hard to compete with enduring original songs like the title smash hit, “All My
Loving,” “And I Love Her,” “I Should Have Known Better,” and “She Loves You.”
Lester
and the Fab Four also had a not-so-secret weapon in veteran comedic character
actor Wilfrid Brambell, who was then nearly as recognizable as the Beatles from
his leading role in the hit sitcom Steptoe
and Son (remade in America as Sanford
and Son). He has a way of mugging that seems rather dryly amusing. He also
demonstrates perfect timing playing off the Lads. Likewise, Neil Aspinall and
Mal Evans do a Mutt-and-Jeff routine as characters based on the Beatles’
personal assistant and road manager that nicely balances broad rubber-faced
comedy with a kind of hyper-real sense of what it must have been like to ride
the Beatles whirlwind.
