Tonight I watched a movie called "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (1978), which as you can imagine is about The Beatles, specifically about the efforts of six teenagers to Meet The Beatles (sorry, I couldn't resist) by finding and sneaking into the group's hotel during their stay in New York in February 1964 for the taping of "The Ed Sullivan Show".
I can remember when this movie came out, and again the time factor just blows my mind because it was 41 years ago. Jimmah Cahtah was President. All four Beatles were still alive. What I remember was that "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was promoted almost as an indie flick, a big hearted crazy comedy made with unknown or little known actors by a young director who was a protege of Steven Spielberg. The director was Robert Zemeckis. He was 27 and making his debut film.
If I think back, I guess I didn't see the movie when it came out because the initial reviews were lukewarm and I really didn't know the cast except for Nancy Allen. I loved the idea of a movie about Beatlemania because that phenomenon was one of my earliest memories. The movie's title was also my very first favorite rock song, the song that introduced America to The Beatles and made them instantly huge. I guess it was just a combination of minor issues - and mainly the less than enthusiastic review I read - that caused me not to see the movie in the theater in 1978, but just a couple weeks ago I was doing a library search for new Criterion releases and I found this film. Immediately I felt nostalgia and I knew the time had come to finally watch it.
Well,,,,,,wow. Sometimes that is all you can say but I will say a little more. First I will say, man I wish times were like they used to be. Things just don't seem as lively anymore, and all you have to do is watch "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as exhibit A. It is one of those big studio comedies of the late 70s and early 80s where the energy is through the ceiling. In this way it is the heir to the Screwball Comedies of the 1930s, but on steroids. New Jersey teenagers Wendy Jo Sperber, Teresa Saldana and Nancy Allen are aware, like every teen and most adults in America, that The Beatles have landed in NYC. They hatch a plan to get to the hotel; all they need is a limo, which fortunately one of their school friends has access to because his Dad owns a funeral parlor. So they score the limo and head out from Jersey to Manhattan, picking up some friends along the way, one of them a leatherjacketed 50s holdover who hates The Beatles with a passion. Another friend of theirs is a Bob Dylan folk purist, who also dislikes The Beatles and considers them commercial phonies. She is the kind of girl who irons her hair and makes strident pronouncements on what is genuine in art and music. She wants to ride along with the friends, if only to denounce The Beatles to news cameras that will be on site at the hotel. The friends let her ride along because she has gas money.
The six get to New York and find the hotel, and I really don't want to reveal any more than that, because this movie is so much fun and so crazy with energy that it would be better for you to discover it for yourself if you haven't already. It has Spielberg's stamp all over it (he produced), and it has "that look" you remember from big budget comedies of the era, just light years from what would be made now and thought of as funny. The cast is brilliant, especially Wendy Jo Sperber and Teresa Saldana, and I wanted to remark about both of them because they are no longer with us. Wendy Jo passed away in 2005 at only 47, and Teresa Saldana died just three years ago in 2016 at the age of only 61. She had something befall her in 1982, just four years after this movie was released, when she was only 27, that was so terrible that I don't even want to mention it. If you are a film buff you already know what I am referring to, otherwise you can Google it if you wish.
I watched the movie and because of the mechanism of time and memory, I was transported back to that time in my life. This happens to me on a daily basis, whenever I am thinking about a past event or era. I not only recall the thing I am thinking about, but I also feel the time period, in ways that words can't describe. You know what I am talking about because it happens to you as well. The only difference may be that I make a major point of absorbing my nostalgia and trying to understand it on a spiritual level. I do this because I feel it has immense meaning, this connection with different moments from the past.
Have you ever wondered if it would be possible, if you had 100% access to your memory, for you to go back and remember every single moment of your life? Literally like a 59 year long movie, or however old you are? Would you do that if you could? Not watch an entire lifelong movie re-run, because it would take too much time, but surely you would want to watch the playback of all the memories of which you were most fond.
Still, as a purely Schopenhauerian question, I ask you : Do you believe that somewhere in your consciousness is stored the memory of every second of your life? And if you had the time, would you sit and watch a replay of it?
I would.
And I would do it for two reasons.
The first is because I have loved this life in all it's joy and pain and complexity. I would live it forever if I could.
And the second reason is because I want to try and understand it. That is why I re-run things over and over again in my head.
This is what we all do, to a greater or lesser extent. Me, I tend to take things all the way, to their intuitive conclusion, though I never get there. ///
"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was so full of energy and so inspired that it is not just a result of the combined talent of cast and director but of the time period in which the movie was created.
It was released in 1978, eight years after The Beatles broke up and fourteen years after Beatlemania hit America. Nowdays, eight years and even fourteen years pass by and nothing much happens, because we are in a lockdown cycle where the news media creates a reality, and I am not talking about Trumpian "Fake News". You know what I mean, I mean the era of electronics that we live in, and the paranoia post-9/11 state in America where fear is the daily measuring stick instead of joy and exuberance. Keep in mind that Beatlemania happened just weeks after President Kennedy was assassinated, and the kids still reacted with unbridled ecstasy to The Beatles arrival, because there wasn't this lockdown culture that we live in now, this media created groupthink 24/7 deal, where news is all that matters, whatever "news" is.
I will shut up now, and I didn't mean to detract from my review of the movie, but you know how I am.
"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was a total blast from start to finish. It is entirely over the top and maybe fifteen minutes too long, but I still give it Ten Stars and my highest possible recommendation because it is so full of life.
See you in the morning with tons of love sent to you tonight. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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