The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night [1964] [DVD]

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Product Description ------------------- DVD Special Features: Disc 1: The Movie Things They Said Today...(Original Documentary) - 37 min Disc 2: Their Production will be Second to None - Filmaker interviews; Richard Lester (Director), Sir George Martin (Musical Director), David Picker (Studio Executive) Denis O'Dell (Associate Producer) With the Beatles - The Cast; John Junkin, Lionel Blair, Kenneth Haigh, David Janson, Anna Quayle, Jeremy Lloyd, Terry Hooper Working Like a Dog - The Production Crew; Gilbert Tayor BSC, Paul Wilson, Betty Glasow, Barrie Melrose Busy Working Overtime - Post Production Crew; Pam Tomling & Roy Benson, Gorden Daniels & Jim Roddan Listen to the Music Playing in your Head - George Martin on the Hard Day's Night songs Such a clean Old Man! - Memories of Wilfred Brambell I've Lost my little Girl - Isla Blair Interview Taking Testimonial Pictures - Robert Freeman interview Dealing with "The Men from the Press" - Tony Barrow Interview Dressed to the Hilt - Gorden Millings Interview They and I have Memories - Klaus Voorman Interview Hitting the Big Time in the USA - Sid Berstein Interview .co.uk Review ------------- A Hard Day's Night may have been the Beatles' first big-screen experience but, as they had become the biggest band in the world by the time of its production, the Moptops were able to ensure it was a bit different from the band-movie norm. "We'd made it clear that we weren't interested in being stuck in one of those nobody-understands-our-music plots," John Lennon would later recall, "The kind of thing where we'd just pop up a couple of times between the action, all smiles and clean shirts, to sing our latest record." Instead the quartet recruited a young director named Richard Lester--who had previously worked with the Fab Four's beloved Goons--to make a movie that followed them as they enjoyed and endured the phenomenon that was Beatlemania. "The film wrote itself right in front of our eyes," says Lester. "We just took the dirty bits and cut them out." The result is a frenetic hour and a half inside the Beatles' personal space as they engage in all manner of surreal hijinks--more often than not involving Paul's "grandher" (played by Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell) while dodging the ever-present horde of screaming fans. Although the result now seems a little dated, there remains an almost heartbreakingly good-natured aura around the foursome's naïve performances, while few could argue about the quality of a soundtrack that includes "Can't Buy Me Love", "And I Love Her" and "A Hard Day's Night" itself, to name but a few. Whether the film would have been quite so successful if Lester had followed McCartney's suggestion and called it "Oh, What a Lovely Wart!" will, sadly, never be known. --Clark Collis