A Hard Day's Night
Short description
A Hard Day's Night follows The Beatles through a single frantic day, as John, Paul, George and Ringo travel from Liverpool to London for a televised performance. Along the way they dodge crowds of admirers and the press, exasperate their manager, and deal with Paul's mischievous grandfather, whose antics cause trouble for the group. Ringo's disappearance before the broadcast turns the trip into a scramble to get him back in time.
The film was directed by Richard Lester, the first of the thirteen features credited to him in chronological order, ahead of Help! the following year. Alun Owen wrote the screenplay and Walter Shenson produced. The four band members appear as versions of themselves, with Wilfrid Brambell as the grandfather and Norman Rossington as Norm among a credited cast of forty-six.
Released in July 1964, the film runs eighty-eight minutes and blends comedy with music. It took about eleven million dollars worldwide. On TMDB it holds a 7.3 rating from roughly 766 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 9.2 from 112 reviews, well above the audience figure.
What's left behind the scenes
- The scene of boarding the train in Liverpool was filmed at Paddington Station in London.
- Among the audience at the television show, you can see a 13-year-old Phil Collins, wearing glasses.
- Ringo Starr was praised for how wonderfully he portrayed sadness and melancholy in the scene by the river, while in reality, at the time of filming, he was suffering from a terrible hangover after the previous day.
- During the performance of the song 'And I Love Her', the camera makes a full rotation around Paul McCartney. To achieve this, the camera was suspended on thin ropes, like a marionette.
- The concert scene at the end of the film was shot entirely in one day, using numerous cameras. The stress caused by filming under such conditions was so great that one member of the crew cracked the enamel on their teeth. This was precisely the reason why cinematographer Gilbert Taylor subsequently declined an offer to work with the team again on the film “Help!” (Richard Lester, 1965).
- When Paul McCartney performs the song 'And I Love Her', at one point the camera starts looking directly at the arc lamp. While reviewing the footage shot during the day, employees of 'United Artists' decided that the shot had been left in the footage by mistake, but producer Walter Shenson assured them that it was intentional, and said that a lot of time had been spent filming that shot exactly as it turned out.
- The title song "A Hard Day’s Night" was recorded after the film had already been shot.
- As a follow-up to the film, NBC launched a series in which The Beatles were replaced by a specially created quartet, The Monkees (literally, “monkeys”).
- The original film reel with the results of the first day of shooting was irrevocably lost when a porter dropped the boxes of film while being chased by young female fans who mistakenly thought he was one of the members of 'The Beatles'.
- The scene with the tire that Ringo trips over on the riverbank had to be filmed over and over again because the tire kept rolling in the wrong direction. Finally, after many takes, David Yanson, a young actor who was to film a scene with Ringo, took over. He managed it on the first try.
- In the scene where “The Beatles” run and frolic in a field, John Lennon was not present. At the time of filming, he was promoting his book “John Lennon: In His Own Write” (1964). A stand-in was used instead of Lennon, and close-up shots were later inserted into the film.
- The phrase, which became the film's title, first appears in John Lennon's story "Sad Michael" from his first book, In His Own Write. According to John, the phrase was coined by Ringo Starr. At the end of a tiring day, he uttered "It's been a hard day", but then, looking at his watch, added "'s night".
- The scene in the train compartment, where the Beatles perform "I Should Have Known Better", was filmed in a bus, and the crew rocked it to create the impression of a moving train.
- During the filming of the movie, George Harrison met Pattie Boyd, his future wife.
- Since 1968, the film has been shown on television, and in 1984 it was released on video cassettes.
- In the running scene at the beginning of the film, George trips and falls, and Ringo bumps into him and falls too. The script did not provide for this, meaning it happened unintentionally. George tore his costume, but quickly recovered, laughed, and continued running. It was decided to leave the fall in the film.
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