After watching a sobering documentary on the 1960s TV band The Monkees last night, I tuned in to more lighthearted fare: Richard Lester’s classic Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night.
And I wasn’t disappointed. I’d seen it countless times, yet in each instance it remained as fresh as ever. Nothing changed on Friday evening. The jokes were still funny, the cinematography superb, the editing slick, the direction sharp. Plus there was that Beatles music. You can’t go wrong with that.
Well, maybe you can with songs such as “Wild Honey Pie.” But thankfully, AHDN didn’t showcase ditties such as those.
The Monkees definitely tried to replicate the style and substance of The Beatles. But in my opinion, they didn’t come close. The material wasn’t the same. AHDN was an innovative picture. It changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll and its appearance in the cinema. To this day, there’s nothing like it, not even the myriad music videos that followed the flick years later. It’s one of a kind.
So I will continue to enjoy it, as I’ve done for decades. It may be a product of a bygone era. Yet there’s nothing dated about it. That’s the mark of a great movie. That’s the mark of art.
Skip and Setter's Cinema Blogishkeit 
Saw it on a double feature with HELP back about twenty years ago. It’s the smoking that still lingers in my memory – EVERYBODY is smoking. Having a cigarette in your hand was like having a shirt on your back. Without it, you were considered naked.
That nightclub! The smoke is as thick as a fog.