A Hard Day's Night (Part 2: And a room)

Part 2 covers roughly the next 12 minutes of Richard Lester's film. We look at the absurdist downplayed reaction to finding an intruder in your hotel room cupboard, and the generational disconnect in how comfortable the Beatles seem in the nightclub, vs how grandfather can only fit in at the casino by pretending to be someone else. Plus! The class dynamics in Ringo Starr's jump-dancing with a posh fellow clubgoer, and some more magic realism in John Lennon's bathtub scene.

A Hard Day's Night is often on BBC iPlayer, although not at the moment, and available to rent on a few streaming services. https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/a-hard-days-night There's also a good quality copy on YouTube at the moment, which might of course be taken down soon. Do yourself a favour and buy the Blu-ray anyway.
Get Samira Ahmed's excellent book about the film, from the BFI Modern Classics series: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-days-night-9781839029394/
James Wood in Prospect magazine in 2000, coining the term "hysterical realism" with reference to, among other books, Zadie Smith's White Teeth: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/56397/hysterical-realism
Watch the 2024 Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/a-complete-unknown

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

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Avsnitt(110)

A Hard Day's Night (Part 5: And a room)

(Ringo's Theme.) We get on to Ringo Starr's real introduction to the world as an actor, when everyone thought "Hey, he's not bad at this, is he?" In particular he does a great job with Wilfred Brambel...

17 Aug 53min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 4: And a room)

Part 4 takes in three of the film's key solo spots: John Lennon's scene with Anna Quayle, George Harrison in the teen TV show office, and Paul McCartney fronting the Beatles' performance of And I Love...

10 Aug 1h 15min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 3: And a car)

From the hotel to the TV studio. We see the Beatles at a press event, which revisits one of the film's themes: that Beatlemania persists with or without the Beatles themselves. We get into more class ...

3 Aug 49min

A Hard Day's Night (Part 1: A train)

Come 'ead, then. We start by looking at roughly the first 16 minutes of the Beatles' 1964 film debut. Expect a detailed breakdown of their first dialogue scene in the train carriage ("Who's that littl...

20 Juli 1h 11min

Snodgrass (with David Quantick)

Ian Hart's third outing as John Lennon was 2013's Snodgrass, adapted by David Quantick from Ian R MacLeod's short story. Aired as part of the Sky Arts Playhouse series, it deals with a Lennon who left...

6 Juli 1h 27min

Raga

In Apple Films' 1971 documentary, Ravi Shankar is pondering whether he's diluted his beloved Indian classical music by promoting it to the West, through his association with George Harrison and The Be...

29 Juni 52min

200 Motels

We're in agreement: this is the worst film we've covered. Yes, worse than Sextette. Ringo Starr's role in Frank Zappa's 1971 freakout film seems like it could've gone to anyone: is there a specific re...

22 Juni 57min