I Watch Films: A Hard Day's Night
In 1964 popular beat combo the Beatles, John, Paul, George and Ringo (played by themselves), travel by train from their hometown of Liverpool to London, to take part in a TV special. With them is Paul’s grandfather John McCartney, their manager and his assistant. These are all comic exaggerations. Everywhere they go they have to avoid crowds of screaming fans, mostly young women, in the grips of Beatlemania.
Told to stay in their hotel room and answer fan mail they go out to party; caught and sent back they discover Grandad has taken Ringo’s invitation to a gambling club where they got to retrieve him. At the TV studio they all have various adventures, the producer thinks they are troublemakers thanks to Grandad. George accidently gets taken off for an advert.
Ringo, dispatched with Grandad to the canteen is reading his book when John suggests he stop reading, instead go out and experience the world. Ringo does so, has his drink spilt in the pub, nearly hits a parrot with a dart. He distracts a woman who falls down a manhole and is arrested. There he again encounters Grandad, who has been selling Beatles photos with fake autographs. There is a final madcap chase as they break Ringo out and go on to play an excellent set at the TV studios before being whisked away by helicopter.
This is a comedy, and a strong one for that. Not so much in the jokes, though John Lennon makes some good ones and Paul McCartney makes an excellent wide-eyed surprised straight man. More in the absurdity of the situation, that these four lads, bright, witty, smart and musically talented but not all that special, have so much revolving around them. In this way the film, seeing Beatlemania from the inside out, captures both the reality and the fantasy, and makes fun of both.
Watch This: Classic comedy film capturing a moment in Beatles history
Don’t Watch This: Four lads hang about, cause trouble
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