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pasternakski -> (5/18/2003 11:40:12 AM)
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One of the great things about "A Hard Day's Night" is that it pretty much invented (okkay, popularized) the idea of music videos. The seven or eight song performances embedded in the movie are almost worth the watching themselves.
Be careful. Once you get hooked, next thing you know you're digging up a copy of "Help!" You probably remember that the primary villains were religious fanatics from "east of Suez" wanting to recover a ring sent to Ringo (who else?) by "a Mideastern bird." He got it on his finger and couldn't get it off, so most of the movie is spent following the cultists' attempts (led by Shakespearean actor Leo McKern) to kill Ringo in accordance with religious dictates about human sacrifice (George: "That's all gab, disembowelling"). Catch the mad scientist and his fiendish, subhuman assistant for a giggle, too (the mad scientist is the same actor who played the TV director in "A Hard Day's Night").
There was supposed to be a third movie in the sequence, written by the same screenwriter, Alun Owen, who did the first two. It was to be called "Up Against It" and feature a washed-up rock band on the skids. Too bad. The lads were too far gone into drugs and self-importance by then to have anything to do with a project like that. They had to do something memorable, like "Magical Mystery Tour" - yech.
One last thing about problems with loading troops. There actually was some serious talk at one time about the Beatles doing a movie based on the Ring trilogy. Paul was to be Frodo, Ringo was to be Samwise, George was to be Gandalf, and John was to play Gollum (or Smeagal). Interesting thought, eh?
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