Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1945 (from May 1945)
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1972
- Notes to the Text
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Film Titles
- General Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- 1945 (from May 1945)
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1972
- Notes to the Text
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Film Titles
- General Index
Summary
If only the British musical film of so many past years had opened itself up to such joy as can be found here
The Rise and Fall of Nellie BrownA Hard Day’s Night
Wonderful Life
Just for You
Swinging UK
UK Swings Again
Rhythm ’n’ Greens
Mods and Rockers
Every Day’s a Holiday
Ballad in Blue
Ferry Cross the Mersey
The Rise and Fall of Nellie Brown
June
‘For sheer youth and vitality this film knocks spots off Richard’s Wonderful Life. It doesn’t advance the technique of film-making, but it should be an object lesson to the film world in what makes for genuine personality.’ For New Musical Express,
Scripted, slapstick and in thrall to Ealing comedies, A Hard Day’s Night is nevertheless the closest we have to a true-to-life document of Beatlemania […] whip-smart witticisms abound, stone cold Merseybeat classics arrive every ten minutes or so and the random plotlines […] only tend towards the ludicrous rather than diving in mop-top-first.
The MFB acclaimed it as ‘streets ahead in imagination compared to other films about pop songs and singers’. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith’s tempered enthusiasm decided that the film,
broken down into its individual components, is pretty poor and insipid stuff […] About the only good single aspect of the film is the songs, which are musically and verbally among the best that the group has produced. It is utterly slapdash, but it is consistent with itself. It works as a whole. It is coherent and has a sense of direction to it and a point.
On this occasion, director Richard Lester confronts his young stars with a considerable number of old codgers, fronted by Wilfrid Brambell, recently propelled to television stardom via the BBC’s Steptoe and Son, as Grandfather. Lester seems to delight in employing senior Equity members. These include the wonderful Edward (Eddie) Malin, the small-part player of many films perhaps best remembered as the steward who consoles a child during the sinking of the Titanic in Roy Baker’s A Night to Remember, and as the silent Walter in the television comedy series Nearest and Dearest, with Hylda Baker forever solicitous as to his well-being (‘Has he been?’). In sharp contrast to the apparently carefree attitudes of The Beatles, Alun Owen’s inventive screenplay has roles for other traditionally stolid older British establishment types: Deryck Guyler, Michael Trubshawe, and Richard Vernon.
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- Melody in the DarkBritish Musical Films, 1946-1972, pp. 244 - 258Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023