Enjoying A Hard Day’s Night again

Has it really been 38 years since A Hard Day’s Night opened? It seems unbelievable but it has indeed been 38 years since the first Beatles movie was shown in theaters on September, 1964. It was then the culminating event of what had become a worldwide phenomenom wherein everybody was caught up in the teddy boy appeal, the joyous abandon and the new kind of music coming from four mopped-topped young men from the working-class of Liverpool in the UK.

Well, it might have been already 38 years but A Hard Day’s Night has not aged one bit. Now available for the first time on legit video, VCD and VHS, the restored, digitally re-mastered rock and roll musical has remained so original and unbelievable by exhilarating. I am sure many filmmakers have tried to duplicate its effect but that long-sustained guitar chord that introduces the picture remains unsurpassed as an introduction to the many delights a picture holds. It gets into your system. It primes you up for the wacky irreverence, the cocky innocence and the madcap antics of the Beatles who luckily found a kindred soul in director Richard Lester.

A Hard Day’s Night tells a simple enough story. It is about getting the Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to the TV studio and keeping all of them there for a live show. Sounds easy but not when you have these four guys. They are intent on meeting all the pretty girls, enjoying London and behaving like their naughty still-little boy selves, while contending with the stiff Englishmen around them forever trying to get them to behave and the hysterical girls trying to get their hands on the four.

Was there ever a time when the Beatles were so young? Was there really a time when they grinned sheepishly as adoring fans screamed while the group sang She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah?" There was and Lester’s at that time innovative semi-documentary style captured all the charm of those goofy, free spirits, who would soon mature into greatness. A Hard Day’s Night is a beautiful gem of a movie that will retain its freshness for all time.

The only quibble I have about having A Hard Day’s Night on video at the moment is that the DVD version with its enticing add-ons like interviews, music videos etc. etc., is not available locally. You’ll forget about the music albums once you get that. The ultimate trip is getting the Beatles on DVD where with perfect sight and sound they can sing A Hard Day’s Night, All My Loving, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Should Known Better, Tell Me Why and other songs. But some bloke decided they are only good for VCD and VHS in the Philippines, so no DVD.

Top 10 songs in the UK

While the Beatles have time and time again been proclaimed the greatest pop group that ever lived, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, the six-minute mini rock opera, added all of the singles Beatles released to become the number one pop single of all times. The poll was recently conducted in Britain to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Official UK Singles Chart Company.

The singles bit list first came out on Nov. 14 1992 with Here in My Heart by Al Martino as the number one song. There have since been 941 number one songs with 18 of them by Elvis Presley. The king of rock and roll once tied with the Beatles with 17 number one hits he recently took the lead when the remix of his A Little Less Conversation made number on 25 years after his death.

The only Beatles song to make the top ten was Hey Jude while John Lennon and George Harrison got solo slots with Imagine and My Sweet Lord. The list is as follows: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen; Imagine by John Lennon; Hey Jude by the Beatles; Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Simon & Garfunkel; My Sweet Lord by George Harrison; A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum; The House of the Rising Sun by the Animals; Dancing Queen by the ABBA; Good Vibration by the Beach Boys; and Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. Take note that all of the songs in the top ten come from the ’60’s and ’70’s period which were indeed the glorious days of pop music in the UK.