A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

dMYD DVD

Starring John, Paul, George and Ringo

Trailer

Y

You don’t see many of these around anymore. Comedies are nasty, superheroes are stuffed with issues, kid’s films are here to sell you a bear with a raised eyebrow. When was the last time you saw a film that’s them was pure, unadulterated joy? (Pixar. PIXAR PIXAR PIXAR) Ignoring Pixar, you didn’t, so tough. Let’s go back to 1964.

After revolutionizing music and inventing pop culture in the space of a couple of years, four kids from Liverpool decide to kick the movies up the arse as well by hiring a Goon Show upstart called Richard Lester to follow them around and film them taking the piss out of things. Seriously. That’s it, for an hour and a bit. They laugh at everything: themselves, their management, the millions of fans who buy their music, World War II veterans who fought for them to live, old people, girls, fashion, music, Wilfrid Brambell. There’s a glorious sense of spontaneity and vigor about their endless ribbing, culminating in a dazzling scene where they simply spazz out in a big field, leapfrogging and jerking about to the strains of one of their own songs. It’s wonderful. It’s literally full of wonder, as well as setting the directing template for the rest of the century; the quick cuts, the edits in time to the music, the bizarre nature of the narrative, all Lester’s, responsible for a bulk of all the cool things you see today. Each Beatle gets a chance to shine, from Paul’s hilariously earnest attempts to read the lines to Ringo’s lonely sojourn through London that culminates in him looking like a big-nosed pedophile in a flat cap. It’s utterly bizarre, brilliant and completely worth watching if only for the scene when one of history’s greatest artistic geniuses pisses about in a bubble bath whilst speaking in a comedy German accent. And it features some of the greatest songs ever written. Gear!