Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

Friday night, July 4th, A Hard Day’s Night, the 50th Anniversary release of The Beatles' seminal adolescent experiment with cinema from 1964, began limited screenings in 100 theaters. It is another US British Invasion of sorts. For the rest of us, the DVD/Blu-Ray reissue hits shelves today, July 6.

Director Richard Lester has said in retrospect that George Harrison was “the best actor;” Paul McCartney “tried too hard.” Ringo, a/k/a Richard Starkey who turns 74 on Monday (see: http://www.ringostarr.com/ringo-starr-starr-band-kick-north-american-summer-tour-announce-additional-dates-october/), is referred to as “Little Richard” in the film. In retrospect, Starkey he has said he considered the filming “mad, but incredible.”

Interlaced with the non-plot, mostly escaping their idyllic notoriety, The Beatles toss off a few hits like “If I Fell in Love with You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and similar early sugary ballads in seemingly candid jam-sessions. The big innovation here is the story-within-a-story that gave fans in 1964 first-person access as if they were backstage, part of the entourage, watching the whole fame machinery spin its wheels.

When George appears as an accidental marketing subject for teen clothing, dissing the entire campaign as “bunk,” you see why Lester called him the best actor of the bunch. His dead-pan is priceless. And George’s commentary about the perils of marketing to young people holds up even today.

Absent Grass, LSD, Gurus, and Counter-Culture influences, you get the feeling the boys from Britain were just as amused as we were in the beginning for Hard Day’s Night. Until Fame became the bigger job, coupled with the warp of insane royalties, and obscene endorsement/touring fees. 

Here’s a kind of kernel of dialogue that informs the entire tone of The Beatles pre-political brush with fame:

Ringo: “I don’t snore.”

George: “You do, repeatedly.”

Ringo: “Do I snore, John?”

John: “Yeah, you’re a real window-rattler, son.”

Ringo: “That’s just your opinion. Do I snore, Paul?”

Paul: “With a trombone hooter like yours, it would be unnatural if you didn’t.”

Giles Martin, son of the famous Sir George Martin who produced nearly every Beatles hit, was involved with the film. He has remarked that you “don’t hear technology… you hear the human element” in the new black and white reissue. Behind the scenes wrangling includes a McCartney fear that Ringo’s “drums would be sampled” and similar trepidations given the long inevitable digital shadow over all music and films these days.

Janus Films retooled the original print in 4K, which means roughly four times the resolution of HDTV, and besides being a marketer’s catchphrase - 4K calls the whole Beatles experience into sharp relief. What was it about those four guys?

Basically Hard Day’s Night represents the end of innocence captured the moment before it flees, as well as a palliative to the US youth quake recovering from President John F. Kennedy’s assassination the year before. This film in re-release also represents its own separate entity apart from the genre of musicians-filming-themselves. 

The Fab Four got lucky that way, riding the Boomer Wave, the ascension of the Counter-culture, ultimately conquered by Consumerism. So, in a way, Hard Day’s Night is bittersweet. And worth seeing again in the ambivalent light of the Digital Age.

If your interest is piqued with this film for more music-movie adventures, Cinefamily in Los Angeles at 611 N. Fairfax, highlighted this feature as part of “Don’t Knock the Rock 2014.”

This is a music movie festival launched in 2008, co-founded by filmmaker Allison Anders, and now co-curated by her daughter Tiffany Anders. BMI, Amoeba Music, The Criterion Collection, Midnight Rider, Factory 25, and more are part of this music tribute film fest. 

You can find out more about what is being shown there through July 10 (think rare music interludes, Led Zepellin films, Q & A’s, general partying), here: /www.cinefamily.org/films/dont-knock-the-rock-2014/#sthash.MHwpFs4w.dpuf.

Meanwhile, Hard Day’s Night for 2014 reminds us why the main thing many people recall from that urgent period in the 60’s when The Beatles broke down the social barriers is ‘the smell of urine.’ Hard to believe the fainting and wetting and general fan-chasing desperation that was the norm in those days. 

Today’s downloading (part-pirating) movie and music audiences deleted their innocence the minute VLC, mp3’s, .iso’s, .avi’s, and .mvk’s hit the scene. 

(Directed by Richard Lester, starring George Harrison (1943-2001), Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon (1940-1980), A Hard Day’s Night (1964) is 87 mins., black-and-white, restored in 4K with missing footage reconstructed. For more details on the 2014 reissue, visit http://janusfilms.com/harddaysnight/about.html )

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