Night Takes King

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 2008)

It must have been immensely frustrating for Elvis Presley to have to sit and watch this movie. As if he didn't feel threatened enough by the Beatles stealing his thunder and taking the American market by storm or by their genius-level songwriting skills (Elvis didn't write his songs), he had to watch them in action in a movie with an Oscar-nominated script, material he could only ever dream of getting his hands on. Oddly enough, the jokey style of this script would have suited Elvis to a tee, he had a similar giddy personality in real life and "Monthy Python's Flying Circus" would become one of his favourite shows. Elvis must also have been frustrated to think that the Beatles were working with people who not only understood exactly who they were but people who respected their talent also, while the people The King had to work with were the exact opposite. Elvis was stuck singing lousy songs in crummy movies for hack directors for the rest of the 60s.
If you ever wondered what all the fuss about Beatlemania was, check out this movie. It perfectly captures the joy of the whole thing, from the underdog charm of the four Beatles themselves to the sheer excitement they created around the world just by being themselves and using their God-given talents.
The film is a flawless fusion of the clever wordplay of Alun Owen's script and the visual humour of director Richard Lester. The whole thing crackles with energy and invention from start to finish.
The first scenes in the film eerily seem to predict the break-up of the Beatles in later years. When the film starts, we see John, George and Ringo but there is no sign of Paul McCartney (John, George and Ringo would later unite against Paul, leading to their split). When we first see Paul, he is wearing a fake beard as a disguise (Paul would have a real beard when the other three turned on him in the late 60s). Weird.
And then there are the Beatles songs themselves. What a pleasure to listen to such gems as "Can't Buy Me Love," "She Loves You," and the title tune "A Hard Day's Night" (based on one of Ringo's sayings). Even the lesser-known songs are good.
The Oscar-nominated script plays to the Beatles strengths by incorporating their own real-life sarcastic comments to journalists in the dialogue while masking their deficiencies (i.e. acting).
Wilfred Brambell plays Paul McCartney's Irish grandfather (Paul's mother Mary really was Irish and came from County Monaghan, she is the "Mother Mary" in the song "Let It Be" that Paul wrote). It was a bold move for one of the heroes to have an Irish relative in a British movie as Irish people were discriminated against in Britain at the time (Rooms to let were advertised across Britain at the time with signs which read: "No Blacks, No Actors, No Dogs, No Irish" - Irish actor Wilfred Brambell was two of those). It only increases the anarchic nature of the whole project even further.
The next Beatles movie "Help," was not as good as this one even though it was in colour. Screenwriter Alun Owen wasn't involved in that one, although director Richard Lester was.
Looking at John Lennon in his early 20s here, it's hard to believe the fate that awaited him on December 8th 1980 when he was shot dead in New York City by the lunatic Mark Chapman. What an appalling waste of a man's life and talent. The good news is that this movie has captured him forever in his prime and it can be enjoyed over and over by future generations. We shall never see their like again.