I had completely forgotten about the Grandfather. He is easily the funniest part of A Hard Day’s Night. In my memory, I mainly just remembered the scenes of screaming fans and music video like scenes featuring The Beatles’ music. For some reason I completely forgot just how funny and solid of a comedy this movie is. The scene where The Beatles find the Grandfather with a woman in a train compartment and he says with the funniest grin, “Congratulate me boys! I’m Engaged!” had me laughing out loud harder than I excepted.

inovation and changes

As entertaining and funny as the movie is, what made it so great were the scenes featuring the original soundtrack created for the movie. They were revolutionary and just plain fun to watch.  Although we might consider it regular and even take it for granted that popular songs by artists have an accompanying music video, in 1964, such a thing did not really exist. A Hard Day’s Night is widely recognized as one of the worlds first introductions to music videos. Even MTV, the king of music videos before Youtube and television channel that popularized music videos, honored the director of A Hard Day’s Night, Richard Lester, as “The Father of Music Videos”.  Almost 20 years before MTV debuted, The Beatles showed off their new music in a way most people had never seen before.  There was quite a lot of new concepts people were being introduced to people in the decade when this movie was released.

The 1960s were a time of great change, socially and artistically. Films, music, social norms and just about everything else were being shaken up and rethought. The Civil Rights Movement was finally catching traction with real change happening leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. That was the same year A Hard Day’s Night came out. This movie is a good reflection of the cultural change happening around the world. Unique for its time, the film is a representation of the carefree, mindset that people longed for during such a tumultuous time.  Seeing The Beatles running around and just having fun, set to the tune of “Can’t Buy Me Love,” was just what people needed to get their minds off the escalating Vietnam war and assassination of Kennedy.

New techniques

Music videos were not the only thing The Beatles and Richard Lester revolutionized with A Hard Day’s Night. Although he did not come up with the techniques, Lester popularized camera techniques from French New Wave movies. Jump cuts were a new concept introduced the French New Wave but did not become mainstream until after A Hard Day’s Night proved it was viable for mainstream audiences. In addition to creating the worlds first music videos, Richard Lester also set the template for how they and musical performances would be filmed in the future with tricks such as jump cuts timed to the beat of the song.

Although it is common now to see movies showing the lives and music of famous artists, in 1964, music films were not known to do well. There had been several movies featuring pop stars such as Elvis Presely and Frank Sinatra but this was the first movie to not bank on just the star power and actually be concerned with presenting a good comedy movie. It was also the first movie to give a real insight into the rockstar life and set the image for that life. The movie proved musical movies were actually viable. With a budget of just $200,000 it grossed over 1.5 million in the box office.

It is like Roger Ebert says in his review of the movie, “Lester achieves an incredible energy level” throughout. He perfectly captured the real insanity of “Beatlemania”  and hectic feel of The Beatles’ lives. Ebert also said “Movies were tamer in 1964” in his review. A Hard Day’s Night was a sharp contrast to the movies of that time. The high, completely good spirited energy of it is what made it so widely popular with audiences and our go-to movie when me and my dad would watch a movie together. My dad used to play this movie for me and my brother when we used to get night terrors. It is clear why it worked so well in calming us down. There is not a single bad vibe in the movie. Even the Grandfather, who is supposed to be the villain of the movie, is fun to watch .

Watching this movie growing up, I never realized just how influential this movie is.  Watching it now though, it is clear that this movie could not be anything but influential. It is a truly a revolutionary masterpiece of its time.