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:

• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
• Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.