On This Day in 1964, The Beatles Invaded Theaters Across the United States with a Film
On this day (August 12) in 1964, A Hard Day’s Night starring The Beatles premiered in theaters across the United States. It was a low-budget film created to capitalize on Beatlemania and sell records, and was successful in doing so. However, no one involved with the film’s production could have predicted its impact on the music world.
A Hard Day’s Night was far from the first movie to star a popular musician. For instance, Elvis Presley starred in more than a dozen movies before The Beatles made their big-screen debut. However, this was something different. Instead of casting John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney in a movie about something far-removed from their real lives, this movie focused on the band. More specifically, it portrayed their massive popularity.
According to the British Film Institute, screenwriter Alun Owen was “a working-class Welshman who’d grown up in Liverpool, so he understood the group’s vernacular.” This, and the fact that he had spent time on the road with the Fab Four, allowed him to capture the group’s dynamic and their personalities for the film. At the same time, he took their lack of acting experience into account and wrote short and memorable lines for them. How The Beatles Changed the World with Their First Movie
A Hard Day’s Night was made specifically to help sell more Beatles records and merchandise. It did that. However, unlike other movies featuring rock stars, it was a critically acclaimed film. It even received an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. This proved to the world that rock and roll movies didn’t have to be low-budget cash grabs created solely to extract ticket money from fans. It set the stage for countless biopics and mockumentaries. That was only the beginning, though.
MTV declared director Richard Lester the “Father of the Music Video” in 1984. His use of Beatles songs over action sequences made each song feel like a smaller, separate movie within A Hard Day’s Night. His vision for the film helped create the music video.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Clayton Edwards
