Blu-ray, DVD Release: A Hard Day’s Night

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 24, 2014
Price: DVD $19.95, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95
Studio: Criterion


A Hard Day's Night movie sceneJust one month after they exploded onto the U.S. scene with their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, The Beatles began working on a project that would bring their revolutionary talent to the big screen – the 1964 comedy musical classic A Hard Day’s Night.

The movie, in which John, Paul, George and Ringo play slapstick versions of themselves, captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever.

Directed with raucous, anything-goes verve by Richard Lester (How I Won the War) and featuring a slew of iconic pop anthems, including the title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Should Have Known Better,” and “If I Fell,” A Hard Day’s Night, which re-conceived the movie musical and exerted an incalculable influence on the music video, is one of the most deliriously entertaining movies of all time.

Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD combo edition and single DVD version of the film contain the following features:

• New 4K digital film restoration, approved by director Richard Lester, with two audio options—a monaural soundtrack and a new 5.1 surround soundtrack made by Apple Records—presented in uncompressed monaural and DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring various members of the film’s cast and crew
In Their Own Voices, a new piece combining interviews with the Beatles from 1964 with behind-the-scenes footage and photos
You Can’t Do That: The Making of “A Hard Day’s Night,” a 1994 documentary program by producer Walter Shenson
Things They Said Today, a 2002 documentary about the film featuring Lester, music producer George Martin, writer Alun Owen, cinematographer Gilbert Taylor,
and others
• New piece about Lester’s early work, featuring a new audio interview with the director
The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film (1959), Lester’s Oscar-nominated short featuring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan
Anatomy of a Style, a new piece on Lester’s approach to editing
• New interview with Mark Lewisohn, author of Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years—Volume One
• Deleted scene
• Trailers
• One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both formats
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Howard Hampton
• More!

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.