Filminspelningen av ’A Hard Day’s Night’ fortsätter

Denna tisdag filmade The Beatles såväl i Twickenham Film Studios som på plats på den intilliggande Arlington Road för filmen A Hard Day’s Night.

Scenerna som spelades in på Arlington Road skulle spegla hur The Beatles hade fastnat i en trafikkö och fick glåpord av passagerare i en annan bil. Ingen av dessa scener ansågs hålla måttet, varför de inte kom med i den slutliga filmen. I rollen som beatlarnas chaufför spelade komediskådespelaren Frank Thornton. Filmscenerna togs utanför huset där Ken Lewis bodde. Han var kandidat för att bli vald för det Liberala partiet i området och det var han som lånade ut sin kampanjbuss till scenerna med trafikkön.

Filminspelningen av ’A Hard Day’s Night’ fortsätter

Måndagens filminspelningar inleds med George Harrisons soloscener, vilka spelas in i Twickenham Film Studios.

Scenerna går i stort sett ut på att en reklamfirma tror att George Harrison är en klädmodell för killar och som skulle passa bra för att göra reklam för ett par nya skjorttyper.

På eftermiddagen spelade George Harrison och John Lennon in de så kallade badrumsscenerna i filmen, när de var åter i Twickenham Studios. Vare sig Paul McCartney eller Ringo Starr var närvarande denna dag för filminspelning.

Tyvärr var inte Paul McCartney och Ringo Starr närvarande i studion denna dag, eftersom det inte behövdes för filminspelningen. Men hade de varit på plats hade de fått träffa en gammal bekant – Roy Orbison – som råkade besöka London och ville ha reda på vad grabbarna höll på med. Roy var ju en av artisterna som grabbarna hade turnerat med under perioden den 18 maj – den 9 juni 1963 i England. Däremot var ju George Harrison på plats som då fick träffa en av sina idoler. Se fotot nedan.

Allt eftersom man filmade hade man många diskussioner om vad filmen egentligen skulle heta. Titelförslag dök upp som Beatlemania, Let’s Go, Let’s Go, och Paul McCartneys förslag Who is this little grandpa? Samtliga förslag förkastades. Det blev Ringo Starr som gav namn åt filmen.

Filmens producent Walter Shenson berättar:
We called this movie The Beatles Movie. We didn’t have a name. Our distributors called from New York and asked us to come up with a name because they didn’t know how to advertise it. I said that we would continue to call it The Beatles Movie until we came up with a name for it. I originally thought that the title of one of the six or seven songs would allow us to give it a name. But neither I, nor Dick Lester, nor the Beatles themselves thought any of these songs would give a good title. Then one day, while filming, I had lunch with John Lennon, who asked me, ”Have you ever heard Ringo change the English language?” I asked him to give me an example, and he said, “Well, somehow we worked hard on a recording session that lasted until four or five in the morning, the next day Ringo said something like,“ Wow. It was a hard day’s evening! ”  

Ringo Starr: We had to work and we shot all day and we had to shoot all evening. I came up with the name, still thinking it was day, and I said, ”It was a tough day.” Then I looked around, realized that it was already dark, and said, ”evening!” This is how we got the name ’A Hard Day’s Night’.

John Lennon: We had a lot of fun then. There were continuous chases and transfers, which reminded us so much of our touring life. According to the script, we had to constantly run away from fans who did not give a pass. One day, Ringo complained of fatigue: ”It was a hard day.” The first line of the next hit was ready. Together with Paul, we put it all to music and two days later on Abbey Road we made the title number of the upcoming film and album.

George Harrison: Ringo was a master at such things. When he said this phrase: ”Evening of a hard day,” he just made a reservation. We played a concert, we were tired and all that, we were driving in the car and suddenly he gave it away. We just went laughing. And Ringo, when he blurts out something, sits as if nothing had happened. Ringo often said grammatically incorrect phrases, and we all laughed. I remember when we returned to Liverpool from Luton on the M1 in Ringo’s Zephyr, the hood of the car was not closed properly. From a gust of wind, it opened and obscured the windshield. We all screamed, and Ringo calmly declared: ”Do not be afraid, soon each of you will be tied to the bunk with a seat belt.”  

Ringo: Tomorrow will never know are also my words. God knows where they came from. Another pearl is ”slightly bread”. “Some bread, thanks.” John liked that the most. He always wrote down my maxims.

Paul: He [Ringo’s] had a special, local humor. He didn’t even realize when he was saying funny things. And he spoke in quotations. We followed him with a notebook at the ready – it was not known what would jump out of him the next moment!

Seva Novgorodtsev, värd för BBC:s radioprogram:
Journalists wrote a lot that Ringo invented this phrase. But it appeared in John Lennon’s notebooks much earlier.

I John Lennons bok In My Own Write kan man läsa följande:
There was no reason for Michael to be sad that morning, (the little wretch); everyone liked him, (the scab). He’d had a hard days night that day , for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower.  

John: I was driving home in the car and Dick Lester suggested something that Ringo said as a title. I have already used this idea in the book In My Own Write – it was an impromptu Ringo, an incorrectly used word that creates that very comic effect, a kind of ringoism – not said in jest, but just like that. Dick Lester said, ”We’ll stop at that title, and the next morning I brought the song.”  

Walter Shenson: It occurred to me that this was a catchphrase of sorts. So I asked John, ”Why don’t we call the movie A Hard Day’s Night and leave them alone about the title?” “Why not?” John said. Then we asked the rest of the Beatles and Dick Lester, and they all said it was pretty good. Then it dawned on me that there was no song titled ”A Hard Day’s Evening”, and I wouldn’t be a producer if I let the film have no title song. So one evening I asked John: ”Could you and Paul write a song called A Hard Day’s Night? Oh my God, we’ve already written all the songs! , he said. But I told him that we need it. “Is this song supposed to reflect this story?”, he asked. I told him no, and he replied that he would do it as well as he could. It was at ten o’clock in the evening. And at eight thirty the next morning, John and Paul called me into their dressing room in the studio. On the back of a cardboard bag of matches, they wrote the words to ”A Hard Day’s Night.” They both took out their guitars and played a song that, when it came out, became number one. I couldn’t believe the genius of these two authors,that they were able to write a hit song to order ”.  

Efter det att man hade gått ut med titeln A Hard Day’s Night meddelade John att han skulle skriva en låt med den titeln, vilket han gjorde samma kväll.

Beatlarnas personliga assistent Neil Aspinall:
For the Beatles, filming was six weeks of hard work. They did everything quickly. At the same time, they not only filmed a film, but also wrote music, recorded an album and did many other things. John and Paul wrote songs all the time, but that didn’t mean all fourteen or sixteen songs were ready for recording right away. After collecting a few basic songs, they finished writing the rest along the way. On Wednesday they wrote one song in the studio, and by Friday they had two more. They composed songs everywhere: on the plane, in hotel rooms, in the pool … They carried guitars with them everywhere. ”  

John: Paul and I loved writing music for the film. There were moments when we were firmly convinced that we would not have enough time to write all the musical material. But we managed to finish a couple of songs while we were in Paris. We finished three more in America while basking in the sun in Miami Beach. I really like four of them: Can’ t Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Should Have Known Better – song with the harmonica part, which we play at the beginning of the film, on the train, and Tell Me Why , the number for the end of the film.  

Paul: We didn’t usually work like that, we didn’t write songs to order. Typically, John and I would sit down and write a song about what we were thinking. But Walter Shenson asked John and me to write songs specifically for the beginning and end of the film. We thought, and it seemed to us a little ridiculous to write a song called ”A Hard Day’s Night” – at that time it sounded funny, but then we nevertheless decided to write that the evening came after a hard day, that we had to work for several days in a row, that now I’m going home and everything will be fine … And this song was included in the film.   

Filminspelningen av ’A Hard Day’s Night’ fortsätter

En vecka efter det att man hade filmat de inledande jaktscenerna i filmen A Hard Day’s Night, kom man denna söndag tillbaka till Marylebone Station i London för att ta kompletterande scener.

Eftersom stationen var stängd på söndagarna för allmänheten kunde man filma tämligen ostört. The Beatles filmades på många olika ställen på stationen och man tog scener där grabbarna försökte komma på ett tåg som just hade startat från perrongen.