A Hard Day's Night, "The 'Citizen Kane' of jukebox musicals"

Opening night in London, July 6, 1964

It's been 50 years this month since A Hard Day's Night opened in British cinemas. The movie, which wouldn't open stateside until August, was a revelation upon release. The Beatles proved they could not only handle dialogue with the best of them, but they also had expert comic timing and screen presence to burn. Screenwriter Alun Owen followed the group around for a couple of weeks to get their Liverpudlian rhythm down, incorporating their unique speech patterns and slang into the screenplay while the film's director, Richard Lester, imbued the film with a silent-movie slapstick, cinema verite style.

"Hey mister, can we have our ball back?"

Filmed in black and white for just $500,600 over seven weeks shortly following their Ed Sullivan Show appearances on American television, the movie was made so United Artists could get the rights to a Beatles soundtrack album. UA got that and a whole lot more; they got a commercial hit (no big surprise); a critical, Academy Award-nominated hit (big surprise); and ultimately, a bona fide classic (biggest surprise of all), making the movie, as Andrew Sarris called it, "The Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals."

Today, "jukebox" is an antiquated term, but 50 years on, the movie - unlike jukeboxes - not only holds up, it may actually have improved with age. It's still a rollicking, good, fictional day-in-the-life of The Beatles. Besieged by fans, living life in "a train and a room a car and a room and a room and a room," it makes life on the road of the world's most wildly successful band manic with its perpetual movement. Indeed even by today's on-the-go standards, A Hard Day's Night is never boring; it hardly stops for a breath. The witty repartee between the Fabs, the press conference, the tormenting of the TV director and the band's manager (in fact, any authority figure), the sheer exuberance and joy of being young and alive with talent and promise (best represented by the "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence, below) with all the world as their oyster make the film irresistible.

And then there's the music. The songs in the movie were from the Beatles third album, but it was the first to have only Lennon and McCartney songs with no covers. McCartney's contribution is significant but relatively small with "And I Love Her," "Things We Said Today," and "Can't Buy Me Love" figuring prominently. But there is no doubt who the mover and shaker is on the soundtrack: John Lennon.

The bulk of the writing was done by Lennon, still in the manic/leadership role he had been in since the group began to jell in the late 1950s. Giddy from the insane heights the band had scaled in just two years, Lennon hadn't yet found the time to let the fame - and, for him, emptiness - sink in. That would arrive on his psychological doorstep soon enough. By the time The Beatles next film, Help!, was being filmed in early 1965, Lennon and the rest of the group had discovered the magic of marijuana and were consuming it with a vengeance (when they were "smoking marijuana for breakfast.") But none of the others were affected by a drug-induced introspection like Lennon was. While he continued to write brilliant songs, he would never again dominate a Beatles album like he did A Hard Day's Night.

The original soundtrack that was issued in the US had only the eight songs performed in the film. The  five additional songs on the UK version would find their way to American shores via other albums released by the Capitol record label that distributed the Fabs records here. With only eight cuts on the US version, United Artists added four instrumental tracks to round out the soundtrack.

The original soundtrack album issued in America, courtesy of United Artists

The movie opened to surprisingly glowing reviews, with special regard for the eclectic array of songs (the album is probably their best from the Beatlemania days, with both uptempo and more melancholy compositions). The zest of director Lester's vision, the wit of Owen's screenplay, and the film's slashing cut-and-run editing and photography were all singled out. Among the four Beatles as actors, Ringo was praised for the vignette in which he temporarily walks out on the band just before a television appearance and makes friends with a ten-year-old boy who has cut class for the day ("I'm a deserter, too."). The concert performed at film's end is, to me, the best example of the frenzy and fury of Beatlemania, the word that gave the movie its original title. By the time the dust had settled, A Hard Day's Night would receive two Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Scoring of Music. Amazingly, given the subsequent success of pop music artists at the Oscars, none of the Lennon-McCartney songs got a nod from Oscar. There may not have been any kind of uproar at the time regarding that snub, but if the film were made today there certainly would be. At the time, however, the two noms it did get were pretty big news for a movie that wasn't expected to achieve much. At the box office the film raked in over $12 million, according to IMDB, which is a ridiculously successful return on investment (adjusted for inflation, the cost would be $3.6 million, and a return of nearly $90 million).

One of the most interesting aspects of A Hard Day's Night is that the band is never named. In other words no one, not once, refers to them as "Beatle Paul" or "Beatle John" or "The Beatles." The only real acknowledgement that they are, in fact, The Beatles, is the logo on the front of Ringo's drum kit. Other movies with musicians like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley were successful, but they didn't play anyone like themselves. Elvis, maybe in Jailhouse Rock, was an extension of his real self, but they always played characters. With A Hard Day's Night, we are thrown into this movie knowing exactly who John, Paul, George, and Ringo are. No needless exposition on how they got where they got, no backstory. Since they are all named after themselves, and the film is shot in a semi-documentary style, audiences of the day assumed this was who they were since they were not actors in real life. Seeing their press conferences on TV news - the way they would volley answers back to the reporters - made the film seem a genuine portrayal of their life, which undoubtedly contributed to its success. (This, of course, would only confuse fans just two years later in 1966 when rumors began to swirl about a possible break up of the band, following the group's decision to stop touring. Those rumors would intensify a year after that when their manager Brian Epstein died of a drug overdose. But that was all in the future.)

Americans were already traveling a hard road by 1964. The shock and dismay that accompanied the assassination of President John Kennedy signaled the turmoil to come over the next six years of the decade. But thanks to the lads from Liverpool, Americans got a little joy back into their lives. In the summer of 1964, A Hard Day's Night was the right antidote for a battered world.

It still is.

Sources: IMDB
              Wikipedia
              My Beatles.net