Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1251 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-09-30
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, PAL
• Original language: English, German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 89 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A Hard Day's Night may have been The Beatles' first big-screen experience but, as they had become the biggest band in the world by the time of its production, the Moptops were able to ensure it was a bit different from the band-movie norm. "We'd made it clear that we weren't interested in being stuck in one of those nobody-understands-our-music plots," John Lennon would later recall. "The kind of thing where we'd just pop up a couple of times between the action, all smiles and clean shirts, to sing our latest record. Never mind all your pals, how could we have faced each other if we had allowed ourselves to be involved in that kind of movie?"

Instead the quartet recruited a young director named Richard Lester--who had previously worked with the Fab Four's beloved Goons--to make a movie that followed them as they enjoyed and endured the phenomenon that was Beatlemania. "The film wrote itself right in front of our eyes," says Lester. "We just took the dirty bits and cut them out." The result is a frenetic hour and a half inside The Beatles' personal space as they engage in all manner of surreal hi-jinks--more often than not involving Paul's "grandfather" (played by Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell) while dodging the ever-present horde of screaming fans. Although the result now seems a little dated, there remains an almost heart-breakingly good-natured aura around the foursome's naïve performances while few could argue about the quality of a soundtrack that includes "Can't Buy Me Love", "And I Love Her" and "A Hard Day's Night" itself, to name but a few. Whether the film would have been quite so successful if Lester had followed McCartney's suggestion and called it "Oh, What A Lovely Wart!" will, sadly, never be known. --Clark Collis

Amazon.co.uk Review
A Hard Day's Night may have been the Beatles' first big-screen experience but, as they had become the biggest band in the world by the time of its production, the Moptops were able to ensure it was a bit different from the band-movie norm. "We'd made it clear that we weren't interested in being stuck in one of those nobody-understands-our-music plots," John Lennon would later recall, "The kind of thing where we'd just pop up a couple of times between the action, all smiles and clean shirts, to sing our latest record."

Instead the quartet recruited a young director named Richard Lester--who had previously worked with the Fab Four's beloved Goons--to make a movie that followed them as they enjoyed and endured the phenomenon that was Beatlemania. "The film wrote itself right in front of our eyes," says Lester. "We just took the dirty bits and cut them out." The result is a frenetic hour and a half inside the Beatles' personal space as they engage in all manner of surreal hijinks--more often than not involving Paul's "grandfather" (played by Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell) while dodging the ever-present horde of screaming fans. Although the result now seems a little dated, there remains an almost heartbreakingly good-natured aura around the foursome's naïve performances, while few could argue about the quality of a soundtrack that includes "Can't Buy Me Love", "And I Love Her" and "A Hard Day's Night" itself, to name but a few. Whether the film would have been quite so successful if Lester had followed McCartney's suggestion and called it "Oh, What a Lovely Wart!" will, sadly, never be known. --Clark Collis

Video Description
DVD Special Features:
Disc 1:
The Movie
Things They Said Today...(Original Documentary) - 37 min

Disc 2:
Their Production will be Second to None - Filmaker interviews; Richard Lester (Director), Sir George Martin (Musical Director), David Picker (Studio Executive) Denis O'Dell (Associate Producer)
With the Beatles - The Cast; John Junkin, Lionel Blair, Kenneth Haigh, David Janson, Anna Quayle, Jeremy Lloyd, Terry Hooper
Working Like a Dog - The Production Crew; Gilbert Tayor BSC, Paul Wilson, Betty Glasow, Barrie Melrose
Busy Working Overtime - Post Production Crew; Pam Tomling & Roy Benson, Gorden Daniels & Jim Roddan
Listen to the Music Playing in your Head - George Martin on the Hard Day's Night songs
Such a clean Old Man! - Memories of Wilfred Brambell
I've Lost my little Girl - Isla Blair Interview
Taking Testimonial Pictures - Robert Freeman interview
Dealing with "The Men from the Press" - Tony Barrow Interview
Dressed to the Hilt - Gorden Millings Interview
They and I have Memories - Klaus Voorman Interview
Hitting the Big Time in the USA - Sid Berstein Interview

Customer Reviews

Strange movie...

A weird and nonsensical movie about the 'fab' four who shot to fame in the 60s.

Not having ever been a fan of The Beatles (but old enough to remember them) I was interested in seeing this film for curiosity reasons, to find out what all the fuss was about - needless to say, I was no more impressed for the benefit...

The main reason The Beatles were so big at the time, was the fact that there had been nothing quite like them previously, and consequently caught everyone's attention because of it - but that's about it! You've got four 'odd' looking (ugly?) guys, with perhaps the exception of Lennon who was a slightly better looking chap than the other three, basically fooling around throughout and being silly. I have to confess, I did find the music good though, and this made the movie bearable for me - along with the early appearances of some big names in film and TV which I found interesting.

My advice would be to fast-forward to the seventies for some real talent in the likes of T. Rex, Sparks and ABBA for contrast. This film has not convinced me that The Beatles were bigger/better than ABBA (not that I ever had any doubts on that score) and so this movie would probably only mean anything to someone who was besotted with the group at the time, and as a consequence inspire lots of nostalgia. The closest I ever got to The Beatles was Yoko Ono, who was, and still is an amazing lady!

I give this film two stars for the music only.

A lovely nostalgic ride with the best soundtrack you could find
Richard Lester worked with the Beatles to produce a clever, touching, visually interesting, humourous and well-acted film that makes the most of the fantastic music and the Beatlemania and uses wonderful English character actors circa 1964 to bounce off the boys' Liverpudlian wit.

The film was obviously a showcase for the music and to introduce the boys' personalities. I like the extras: George Martin is such a great guy that you can't help but be entranced by anything he says, and I love seeing Brian Epstein footage because he was sneaky but extremely clever as a pop promoter.

A lovely, nostalgic ride back to when things seemed a touch simpler.

london new wave?
Lester is an underrated director, or perhaps he didn't pull his weight with 'The Beatles', but 'A Hard Days Night' is a stylistic gem with moments that recall Godard and Truffaut. Intercutting grainy hand held tracking-shots-on- the-run, sharp edits, an odd mix of Ealing style British comic style and French New Wave. 1964 predicts 1968, while the fab four escape screaming throngs of beatlemaniacal girls and retire in rooms with a grandfather in tow to discuss class politics in the British 60s, north south divide and all. A heady mix; so if you can tolerate a film that looks a little bit like 'The Monkees' TV series, with its faintly surrealist TV-lite, boasting the charming antics of the boys in an obvious teen marketing ploy; it has other merits as a film. A nod to Cssavetes and Godard; can this be British cinema? The anarchy of Ealing Studios suffused with avant-garde style?
In which case we tolerate the documentary sections with the 'boys' performing every song from their album in realtime in ever ludicrous locations with a zany silly, playtimeTV-style, although the songs are great, but the cameos just don't work. There are gems of dialogue, witty, smart, cutting, and a refreshing look at Britain in the 60s, the politics of a generation of self-proclaimed working-class heroes, pop troubadors, popular intellectuals, a sort of UK experimetal Surrealism of which Lester is a fascinating exemplar, and the film, 40 years later, still resonates with recognisable themes and clear context.