Released 50 years ago today, A Hard Day’s Night, the cinematic debut of The Beatles, marked the start of true Beatlemania, with a delightful combination of their early musical hits and the wit that made them as popular as people as it did musicians. Far from the dull concert movies of the One Direction ilk, A Hard Day’s Night is a fun musical comedy centred around the four boys and Paul’s “very clean” grandfather, with actual plot development like Ringo’s quest for happiness, George’s mistaken identity, and the mischief of Wilfrid Brambell as the Grandfather. But A Hard Day’s Night is a film to capitalise on the popularity of The Beatles’ music first and foremost, and one of the most significant scenes for that is Can’t Buy Me Love.
The Can’t Buy Me Love sequence could arguably be considered the world’s first ever music video, followed a year later by Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues which also sometimes claims that title. Featuring John, Paul, George and Ringo escaping from a TV studio through the fire escape to have a bit of a giggle in the park, the sequence embraces the fun loving spirit of early Beatles music, employing techniques like speeding up the action in a Benny Hill-esque fashion, the effects have been much parodied throughout the years, even so far as having Horrible Histories recreate the scene with Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Diogenes.
Can’t Buy Me Love is not just the birthplace of music video, though. It is the culmination of the free, fun-loving spirit of the film. The following numbers in the film are straight-forward performance scenes, while Can’t Buy Me Love is a breakaway bit of silliness that proves the inventiveness of The Beatles, only the smallest taster of how innovative they were to become. Also, Can’t Buy Me Love is a cracking tune
The Can’t Buy Me Love sequence could arguably be considered the world’s first ever music video, followed a year later by Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues which also sometimes claims that title. Featuring John, Paul, George and Ringo escaping from a TV studio through the fire escape to have a bit of a giggle in the park, the sequence embraces the fun loving spirit of early Beatles music, employing techniques like speeding up the action in a Benny Hill-esque fashion, the effects have been much parodied throughout the years, even so far as having Horrible Histories recreate the scene with Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Diogenes.
Can’t Buy Me Love is not just the birthplace of music video, though. It is the culmination of the free, fun-loving spirit of the film. The following numbers in the film are straight-forward performance scenes, while Can’t Buy Me Love is a breakaway bit of silliness that proves the inventiveness of The Beatles, only the smallest taster of how innovative they were to become. Also, Can’t Buy Me Love is a cracking tune
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