From the hotel to the TV studio. We see the Beatles at a press event, which revisits one of the film's themes: that Beatlemania persists with or without the Beatles themselves. We get into more class dynamics between Ringo Starr and the sound engineer ("Aren't you being rather arbitrary?") and John Lennon's delivery of If I Fell gets us into discussing whether he could sing love songs straightforwardly without undercutting them with a joke, something which Paul McCartney didn't struggle with.
Links
A Hard Day's Night is often on BBC iPlayer, although not at the moment, and available to rent on a few streaming services
There's also a good quality copy on YouTube at the moment, which might of course be taken down soon. Do yourself a favour and buy the Blu-ray anyway.
Get Samira Ahmed's excellent book about the film, from the BFI Modern Classics series
Video
The scene we mention from Richard Lester's Superman II, in which General Zod walks on water and an onlooker (who, as we'll discuss in part 5, is also in A Hard Day's Night) throws away his drink
The series
A Hard Day's Night (Part 1: A train)
We kick off our deep dive into the Beatles' 1964 film debut, unpacking the absurdist class comedy of the train carriage scene. "Who's that little old man?"
Listen on Spotify
A Hard Day's Night (Part 2: And a room)
Beatlemania meets magic realism as we continue through the film, from a hotel room stowaway to Ringo's class-conscious dance moves in the nightclub.
A Hard Day's Night (Part 4: And a room)
Three solo spotlights in one go: John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney each get their moment, including Paul's performance of And I Love Her.
A Hard Day's Night (Part 5: And a room)
Ringo Starr steps into the spotlight as we explore his standout scene with Wilfred Brambell, then join him parading by the Thames and meeting a fellow deserter.
A Hard Day's Night (Part 6: And a room)
We reach the film's frantic finale, tracing its Buster Keaton-inspired chase scenes and asking if Ringo Starr's homecoming really resolves anything.