(12-08-2013 09:35 )4evadionne Wrote: August 12th
1964 - USA: The Beatle's first feature film "A Hard Day's Night" opens across the country to rave reviews.
Released in 1964,
A Hard Day's Night was the first film to star all four Beatles. Released at the height of Beatlemania and shot in black and white, the film follows the band on a typical few days in their lives as they make a journey from Liverpool to London to appear on a television programme.
The Beatles approached Alun Owen to write the screenplay after being impressed by his play,
No Trams to Lime Street. They felt he had a natural aptitude to Liverpudlian dialogue with Paul McCartney saying ""Alun hung around with us and was careful to try and put words in our mouths that he might've heard us speak, so I thought he did a very good script". Owen wrote the script from the viewpoint that the Beatles were prisoners of their own fame, that the schedule of constant touring and promotional work had become punishing. The band had discussed this with Owen and said "their lives were like "a train and a room and a car and a room and a room and a room". Richard Lester was selected to direct the film with distribution by United Artists. Before A Hard Day’s Night was released in America, a United Artists executive asked Lester to dub the voices of the group with mid-Atlantic accents. McCartney angrily replied, “Look, if we can understand a fuckin' cowboy talking Texan, they can understand us talking Liverpool.” Lester subsequently directed The Beatles' 1965 film, Help!
The supporting cast featured many names who would go on to big achievements themselves. Irish actor Wilfrid Brambell played Paul's grandfather. A recurring joke throughout the film was for Brambell to be "such a clean man", a play on his character in the sitcom, Steptoe and Son, where he is constantly referred to as a "dirty old man". Lionel Blair, Richard Vernon, Kenneth Haigh, Derek Nimmo and Phil Collins also made cameo and uncredited appearances. George Harrison met his future wife Patricia on set, with her playing a schoolgirl on the train and the band's real manager, Brian Epstein, had an uncredited bit part.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, in Best Original Screenplay for Alun Owen and Best Adapted Score for George Martin. By 1971 the film was reported to have earned $11 million worldwide and it is credited as one of the most influential musicals of all time, rated by Time magazine in the top 100 best all time films and inspiring numerous spy films, music videos and the Monkees television show.
Original trailer from Youtube and Wikipedia link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day%...ght_(film)