Episode Ep 883 March 6, 2026 44 min 15s

How A Hard Day’s Night ripped up the pop movie rulebook

From Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Author and broadcaster Samira Ahmed used to watch A Hard Day’s Night once a week and she’s just written an enthralling account of the shoot and its impact for the BFI’s Classic Films series. A movie, she points out, that celebrates Britishness and suburbia made largely by immigrants that broke every Hollywood rule, a film made to capture the essence of the Beatles before the bubble burst “which turned out to be the start of something not the end”. She talks to us here about …

… the film’s connections with the Goons, the Young Ones, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Billy Liar, It’s Trad Dad and the Nouvelle Vague

… and its influence - from the Dave Clark Five’s Catch Us If You Can and Paul Jones’ Privilege to Charlie XCX and the Moment

… how the train sequence for I Should Have Known Better invented pop video

… the play John and Paul wrote (Pilchard!) that was a homage to its scriptwriter Alun Owen

… Paul’s two-day solo shoot with Isla Blair and other (mercifully) deleted scenes

... Profumo, pirate radio, the changing Britain of 1964

… Pattie Boyd, Anna Quayle, Alison Seebohm and other stand-out female stars

… Wilfred Brambell’s gigantic fee and how badly his part has aged

… why George and Ringo emerged as the stars

… surely the greatest scene? – “She's a drag, a well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things”

… “hair that moved!”: the film’s impact in the USA

… “beat-up and depraved in the nicest possible way”