Ten Days, Ten Movies, Ten Images: Day 10

For the first time in my life, someone had made a film for me.

No, not "for children everywhere" - as was the case for those delightful, magical Disney movies I was so fond of, or even for those hilarious, more subversive Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes.

This was a movie for the me I was becoming, a young person who had just lifted her eyes above the horizon of her own immediate existence.

What wonders I found there...

But allow me to digress.

February 9, 1964.

On the night before my birthday, my family (Mom, Dad, my two sisters, my two brothers and I) gathered in the family room for the "Ed Sullivan Show", as we did every Sunday. This night would be special: my "four lads from Liverpool" were on for the first time, on the black-and-white stage of our RCA console television with the wicker doors.

How different my world would be, after Ed Sullivan said, "Ladies and gentleman, The Beatles!"

Six months later, this film was released.  

It was supposed to be a throwaway to capitalize on a short-lived craze, but something funny happened:  a talented writer and a madly creative director first understood, then tapped into the charisma and magnetism of four young men, capturing their charm, their wit and the appeal of the music that still resonates across the world of music fans, five decades later.


"A Hard Day's Night" (1964)
Directed by Richard Lester
Screenplay by Alun Owen
Image: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon (“The Beatles”)

Montage of the opening credits of "A Hard Day's Night"


I first saw "A Hard Day's Night" accompanied by a chorus of screams that could not have been louder had the lads been live in person at the Washington Theater (later Cinema 21), my neighborhood movie palace. It only cost a quarter to go on the ride of my life.

This film feels like the funniest documentary ever made.  It is, of course, a work of fiction, but I cannot imagine how it would have been possible to capture more perfectly the giddy ecstasy of those early, heady days of Beatlemania. 

It was fun. It was liberating.  It had the poignancy of a time that could not last. It was a blue-moon wonder - so rarely seen, forever memorable.

I never had a chance to see The Beatles in concert, so this film will always stand in as my own personal journey with four lads who changed the world.

 

It is not an exaggeration to say that The Beatles changed my life. I was a kid who barely had two digits in my age, but they opened my eyes to a world beyond my neighborhood, to music that ranged from three chord pop to classical and Indian to psychedelic dreams to social activism, to fashion and culture - and to boys with hair as long as mine.

The first album I bought was "Meet the Beatles" - and I still have it. 

 I still remember those wondrous times when the world was full of possibility and all I needed was love. 

And I still love you (yeah, yeah, yeah), John, Paul, George and Ringo. 

Thanks, lads.