"Out of A Hard Day's Night came the sixties." - Roger Ebert
(Source of the picture)

Lovers (A Preface)

The first time I saw A Hard Day's Night was about three years ago...

Maybe some people could have sat quietly on a couch and watched the video once and be done with it. I couldn't - I'm proud to admit - I couldn't. I sat on the living room floor, right in front of the TV set with my nose almost glued to the screen. I screamed. I ate about a dozen tangerines. I laughed. I cried. I went crazy. I watched the film three times that night. Three times in a row. The night was so... so fragile. I was alone. Just me and my lovers. Dark all around me, nothing but the vague light from the black and white screen. Silence all around me, nothing but the voices of my lovers. At full volume, of course. I was so full of love for my lovers. I looked in their eyes and made a connection. John smiled at me. Paul sang me a love song. It was love. It was beautiful. It was magic. It was Beatlemania - a beautiful disease from which I've never recovered.

Thank you John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Believe me, I wouldn't have made it without you.

The Film

"What made it all work was that the Beatles had screen presence.
You couldn't keep your eyes off them." - Walter Shenson

A Hard Day's Night is, relatively speaking, one of the most successful movies ever made in Britain. The film was made in 1964 and cost less than £250,000 (which was a low budget even by 1960s standards), and the box office success was enormous. In ticket sales the movie made almost thirty times the money spent on making it! The film was released worldwide at the peak of a new type of madness called Beatlemania, and it was praised by fans and critics alike (Barrow, p. 4; 12).

At the time, A Hard Day's Night was called "the Citizen Kane of juke box musicals" (The Beatles, Making), and its stars, the Beatles, were referred to in The Daily Mail as "the Merseybeat Marxes, four adenoidal young anarchists" (Barrow, p. 12). This movie has earned itself the credit of being called the beginning of music videos, and its director Richard Lester has been named "the putative father of MTV [Music Television]" - an honour which Mr. Lester himself doesn't seem to be too thrilled about, though:

"MTV gave me a very nice diploma at one time on vellum saying that I was the putative father of MTV.
But I've insisted on a blood test." - Richard Lester (The Beatles, Making)

But what is it about this movie that makes it so special and loved and enables it to stay fresh and be praised and adored still today, over 35 years after it was first released? Is it just the simple charm of the four Liverpudlians who starred in it? Is it John Lennon's sarcastic wit that made the magic stay? Or is it the cute face of the clever peace-maker, Paul McCartney? How about the quiet, sly humour of George Harrison? And how about the irresistible appeal of the little drummer Ringo Starr, "alone in the back, always separate - everybody's favourite", as Phil Collins put it. It is not only all of these things, it is also a lot more.

Let's face it, A Hard Day's Night could have been a total flop. It could have been just one of those rock'n'roll movies that started to appear in the movie business in the 1950s. Just think of all those movies, with Elvis Presley or a wannabe-elvispresley of some sort in it, with a couple of songs, a dumb plot that goes nowhere, some cute girl co-starring and a lot of cheap ads to promote it. And how the fans queued. But only the fans! And who remembers these flicks anymore? (The Beatles, Making)

But there certainly was a lot of pressure put on the Beatles to make such an exploitative movie, based entirely on their contemporary popularity that was expected to vanish any day. Actually, the only reason why United Artists wanted to make a film with the Beatles in the first place was that they could then have a soundtrack album to sell by the million! And there really were questions like "How much should we spend on advertising; will the Beatles even be remembered tomorrow?" Of course you can't blame people for asking those kind of questions, for at that time, not one rock'n'roll group had really made it. But the so-called one-hit-wonders were many (The Beatles, Making).

Fortunately, the Beatles had already made up their minds, and insisted on a decent offer before even considering to be part of any film. And a decent offer they got. United Artists made the surprisingly clever decision of asking a man called Walter Shenson to be the producer of the Beatles' first film. A beautiful chain reaction. It was Shenson who got hold of Richard Lester and asked him to be the director. It was Lester who got the idea of Alun Owen writing the script for the movie. Not to mention it also being Shenson who told the Beatles to write seven new songs for their film. And the rest is history (The Beatles, Making).

Richard Lester was a perfect choice to be the director of the Beatles' first film. The group already knew him, for he had worked with The Goons on British TV, on a show that the Beatles knew and admired. Lester also had a sense of surrealism, which without doubt has had something to do with the movie's lasting appeal. In A Hard Day's Night there are such marvellous scenes with the Beatles being inside a train one moment and running beside it the next, with one of the Beatles' roadies being taller than their manager on purpose, and with John Lennon vanishing in the bath-tub only to appear seconds later beside it. And these are only a few examples (The Beatles, Making; Anthology).

Lester would also tell everybody that it was just a rehearsal while he was actually shooting, and he had the idea of using "real" fans in the movie, chasing the Beatles in train stations all over England. He also wanted to shoot as much as possible in "real" places, not in the studio. When they did a scene in a train, they actually bought tickets for a real train (the best-kept secret in the history of British Railways - but did the fans find out nevertheless? Take a wild guess!) And when there was a scene on a stage, they held a concert in a real theatre with a real stage, the audience being real fans (The Beatles, Making; Anthology).

Alun Owen was also a perfect choice as the script-writer of the film. He was a Welsh playwright who had written, among other things, a TV play called No Trams to Lime Street, which all the Beatles had loved. The idea was to make the film a sort-of-documentary of the Beatles' real life, and so Owen went to Dublin with the band for two days when they were touring there (The Beatles, Making).

Everybody wanted the film to be a comedy. This was clear enough. As to the plot - nobody had any idea as to how the plot should go. But when on tour with the band, Owen started to get ideas. Paul McCartney remembers: "... Alun Owen, this Welsh playwright, a very likeable bloke, and he came and hung out with us for a few days, which was great because he picked up all the little things, little jokes, the sarcasm, the Beatle way of humour, John's wit, Ringo's comedy; he picked up our characters, which was good" (Barrow, p. 8).

But the fact which surprised Owen most of all was the way in which the Beatles were actually "prisoners of their own success" with no spare time, and even if they had a couple of minutes off, there was no place to go where there weren't crowds of screaming fans. And this became the plot (The Beatles, Making).

In A Hard Day's Night the Beatles are shoved around from trains to taxis to hotel rooms to stage and back again, just like they were in their real lives at the time, until they finally break free. This happens somewhere in the middle of the film, when the boys go their separate ways. This isn't as confusing to follow as it may sound, because in the film the story is held together by a mad television director, who is constantly looking at the clock (The Beatles, Hard).

The superficial level of the plot goes like this: The Beatles are supposed to attend a TV show, and before that they are supposed to get to the set, rehearse their numbers and try not to cause too much madness with their presence. And of course this doesn't work out. Ringo is constantly picked on by Paul's grandfather for being short and sissy, until he finally gets to the point of "the hell with it all" and goes out to prove he's a man after all (ending up in a police station) (The Beatles, Hard).

Meanwhile all the other Beatles try to find Ringo and they also leave the television studios causing the TV director (played marvellously by Victor Spinetti) to go crazy with anxiety: "Where are they? Where are they? Where are they?" because nobody knows if the Beatles are to return in time before the show is supposed to begin (it's a live show). But of course finally the boys return, acting as if nothing has happened, and perform their numbers in front of an ecstatic audience of young girls (The Beatles, Hard).

On a deeper level the film seems to catch something crucial of the dark side of the band's own success. The idea of being "prisoners" of their own fame becomes very clear in the film, in which the boys are constantly being told what to do by other people, mainly by their manager and the TV director. Finally they get away from it all and run into the city streets - only to be chased by their fans and the police. They thus had no privacy at all - which was very much the case in their real lives as well. This kind of fame can be ugly, even fatal: the message of A Hard Day's Night becomes all the more clear (and scary) when keeping in mind that John Lennon was actually shot dead by a "fan of his" 16 years after starring in this film.

A Hard Day's Night had its royal world premiere at the London Pavilion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus on Monday, July 6, 1964, with Princess Margaret attending the event along with the Beatles, and from then on, the film packed cinemas all over the world. The Beatles themselves liked the film very much, although John Lennon couldn't help letting his famous sarcasm have the final word: "It's as good as it can be with anybody that can't act" (Barrow, p. 4; 12).

The Script

Reporter: "What do you call that haircut of yours?"
George: "Arthur."

Why Alun Owen's script for A Hard Day's Night didn't win the Academy Award in 1964, in spite of its nomination for the prize, is anybody's guess. Over the years the script has been praised wildly for its innovativeness and freshness, not to mention its hilarious comedy (The Beatles, Making)

It was a wise choice of Owen's to go and spend some time with the band beforehand, so he could learn a little something of their language and humour. After all, the Beatles all came from Liverpool, where people are said to be very quick-witted and seem to have a humour of their own. The film is full of witty little jokes - and has also been highly praised for them, but according to Owen, this kind of humour is just the Liverpool way (The Beatles, Making):

Man On Train: "I shall call the guard."
Paul: "Ah, but what? They don't take kindly to insults you know."

Reporter: "How did you find America?"
John: "Turned left at Greenland."

Reporter: "What do you call that collar?"
Ringo: "A collar."

The lines in the film are very short, brisk and witty, and because of this, many people actually thought at the time that the film was mostly, if not entirely, improvised. But this was not the case. According to Owen, John Lennon was the only one to improvise, saying little things like "Look, it's a bird!" every now and then. The director Richard Lester also recalls that when he started shooting, he never had any idea of what Lennon was going to do. Apart from this the film followed the script quite strictly (The Beatles, Making).

But John wasn't the only one to take a little freedom. Tony Barrow (a close friend of the Beatles) later recalled: "Admitting that he found it much harder to learn the words he had to say in A Hard Day's Night than the lyrics of the songs the group used to sing, Paul [McCartney] claimed that he preferred to get the lines for each scene into his head only minutes before he went in front of the cameras. He added the positive thought that this gave his acting extra realism, a natural air of the impromptu" (Barrow, p. 10).

The reason why the lines were so short is actually quite simple. Nobody knew whether the Beatles could act! The lines had to be kept short, so that the band could memorize them better, and very skilled professional actors were also cast for the minor roles, so that the unprofessional acting of the Beatles could be balanced with these strong character actors. But of course, as everyone soon found out, the Beatles weren't such terrible actors after all, and because Owen's script was so close to their "real" way of speaking, it came quite naturally for them to slip into their roles and have a ball! This helped, in addition, to make the film more documentary-like (The Beatles, Making).

The lines in the script are all naturally very British, with words like lad (meaning a young man), potty (meaning slightly mad) and posh (meaning sophisticated), to name but a few. And when exploring on the mere word-level of the film, one particular word mustn't be forgotten - the word grotty. This word actually came into public use from the film, just like the word fab came into general usage with the Beatles, who were constantly being referred to as the Fab Four (fab = short for fabulous) (The Beatles, Making).

The word grotty is a short form of the word grotesque, and many people still believe that Alun Owen actually invented the word, but he denies this and claims that "Liverpool invented the word". According to Owen, there was some famous character in Liverpool called "Grotty G.", who was called that because she seemed grotesque to other people. And since "everything gets abbreviated in Liverpool", as Owen put it, the word grotesque simply turned into the word grotty (The Beatles, Making).

But none of the Beatles had ever heard of the word, and later John Lennon recalled it thus: "We thought the word was really weird and George curled up with embarrassment every time he had to say it" (Barrow, p. 8).

And then there's the word swine. This word is one of the most frequently used words n A Hard Day's Night and again, according to Owen, this word is just one of those words that a Liverpudlian would use. Not a pig, not a hog, but a swine (The Beatles, Making). The film actually ends with this word:

The Manager: "I've got only one thing to say to you, John Lennon!"
John: "What?"
The Manager: "You're a swine."

The Beatles had never been afraid of twisting the English language a bit, as they also used a slang of their very own, with expressions like "Gear costume!". The person to really involve himself in this kind of nonsensical speech was John Lennon, who even wrote two books of poetry in the mid-sixties, John Lennon in His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, both of which were full of nonsensical words and expressions - and therefore, hilarious.

But the other three didn't come far behind, and Ringo in particular had the habit of blurting out things that didn't make sense. In fact, the name of A Hard Day's Night came from him, as he once said after a long and hard recording session: "It's been a hard day" - then he looked around and noticed that it was already dark outside - "I mean, a hard day's night". John Lennon used to love these nonsensensical blurtings of Ringo, and used one of them as the title of one of his songs: Tomorrow Never Knows. Alun Owen was also aware of this tendency of Ringo's, and made use of it in creating a perfect little joke for the film:

Reporter: "Are you a mod or a rocker?"
Ringo: "No, I'm a mocker."

The film is utterly British even when one moves from the mere word-level to the more general level of concepts and connotations. In A Hard Day's Night we find John Lennon mocking the Monarchy and imitating the Queen ( "I now declare this bridge open", he says in a high-pitched voice and cuts a tailor's measuring tape in half), and we find him singing "...Britannia rules the..." in a bath-tub. In the film we also hear all these typically British expressions like "Well, I'll have a bash" (= the same as "I'll have a go") and "Are you gonna have a barney?" (= "Are you gonna have a fight?"), "Keep Britain tidy" and of course "Did you go to Harrods?" (= a famous super-store in London).

But what is even more interesting than the simple word differences between British and, let's say, American English, is probably the difference between the language of the different social classes in England, which is also present in the film. In England, it has always been easy enough to point out people's social backgrounds by simply listening to them speak, and Owen was aware of this when creating the following scene with George. In the scene George meets (by accident) a man who is some kind of TV director in charge of a TV-show that's supposed to set the trend for young people. In the following dialogue the two talk about the star of this "trend-setting" show. A simple working-class Liverpool-lad meets a director with an Oxford accent:

George: "Oh, you mean that posh bird who gets everything wrong."
The Man: "I beg your pardon?"
George: "Oh yeah, the lads frequently sit around the television and watch her for a giggle. In fact, once we all sat down'n'wrote these letters saying how gear she was and all that rubbish."
The Man: "She's a trend-setter. It's her profession."
George: "She's a drag. A well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things."
The Man: "Get him out of here!"
George: "Have I said something you've missed?"
The Man: "Get him out!"

The script of A Hard Day's Night is probably one of the funniest ever written, and it is no wonder that the Beatles were referred to as "the young Marx Brothers" after the film had been released (The Beatles, Anthology). But it wasn't just the script that made this film such magic. It wasn't just the directing skills and the sense of surrealism of Richard Lester that made the fans queue at box offices all over the world. It was also the presence of the Beatles. The spirit of the Beatles. Walter Shenson said in 1964: "[The Beatles] are witty, outrageous, bright, terribly talented, rude. They are scary because they have all this and are still in their early twenties" (Barrow, p. 8).

Closing Words

A Hard Day's Night has been a life saviour for many Beatles fans who didn't get the chance of existing in the sixties. All of us who have been alive for the same amount of time as John Lennon has been dead, we too want to be a part of Beatlemania, in at least almost the same way as the lucky bastards who got to see the band in person. And with A Hard Day's Night we can.

"We all wanted to spend a day with the Beatles. And A Hard Day's Night allowed us to be part of Beatlemania from the inside. The movie introduced us to the four people who'd become like family. And if the Beatles were the rolemodels for the sixties, and if the Beatles were our gods, our religion, if you like, then A Hard Day's Night was like our Old Testament. Because the movie showed us what it was like to be a Beatle. And we've never forgotten." - Phil Collins

---

Works Cited:

• Barrow, Tony; How Real Was 'A Hard Day's Night'?, The Beatles Monthly
  Beat Publications Ltd. July 1997

Videos:

• The Beatles, The Making of A Hard Day's Night
  Apple Corps Ltd, MPI Home Video, 1995
• The Beatles Anthology (Part 3)
  Apple Corps Ltd. 1996
• The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night
  Apple Corps Ltd, MPI Home Video, 1995

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Last Updated 27 March 2000