4. A Hard Day’s Night
A classic musical exploitation film, only with a good script, a good director and The Beatles at the height of their first flush of fame. It’s got a slightly bullshitty plot, but it rolls along at a fantastic lick and obviously you get a lot of great musical performances. But it’s those scenes where they’re chased through Marylebone station that are the most amazing. The phenomenon of public youth hysteria is really interesting. The book documents three historical moments of it. The first was August 1926, when Rudolph Valentino died and tens of thousands of kids came on the streets, there’s a brief snippet of it in the film, we actually found some footage. Then in 1939, when The Wizard Of Oz opened in Manhattan – Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland arrived in grand central and were mobbed by kids. And then obviously Sinatra at the Paramount which is the climax of the movie.
