I Wanna Hold Your Hand
October 10, 2004
There are some things I would have liked to have been around for. Paris in the ‘20’s, hangin’ with Hemingway, Picasso, and Fitzgerald, among other notables, would have been cool. Watching the moon landing, or the Mets win the World Series in ’69, there are two more. Maybe seeing “The Gold Rush” for the first time in theaters in ’25, “Citizen Kane” in ’41, “The Godfather” in ’72, or watching Fellini brainstorm “8 ½” on the Cinecitta back lot in ’63. All of these, including the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and listening to Abe give the Gettysburg address are historical happenings that have been vicariously fantasized about many times, and some have even been recreated on film and TV to give us, the unfortunates who were born too late, the opportunity to feel like they’ve witnessed the real deal. But perhaps the number one event I would have loved to been a part of, was the initial frenzy of Beatlemania in February 1964, when a group of British musicians with funny haircuts, matching suits, and catchy pop tunes, stormed NY City and CBS, and forever changed pop culture as we know it. So famous is this moment, that it has been documented hundreds of times- the best being Albert and David Maysles’ cinema verite documentary “The Beatles First Visit”- and now on DVD, is arguably the most joyous fictionalization of the insanity surrounding the Beatles first Ed Sullivan performance on February 9, 1964, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, the 1978 screwball comedy from newbie Robert Zemeckis that gets it so right, you actually feel like you’ve been to 1964 and back, gobbled up loads of nostalgia, not to mention great music, and survived with a beaming smile plastered across your face.
The film, sort of lost to history, unfortunately, yet now gloriously available again, is a madcap exploration of that famous day, revolving around eight teenagers, of various degrees of Beatle fanaticism, who all try desperately for a ticket to see the Sullivan show that introduced the fab four to North America. They are: Pam, a nice girl on the eve of her wedding day, reluctant to join, Rosie, a Paul head, Grace, a photographer looking for a big break, Larry, a patsy for Grace, Tony, the cynical rebel, and Janis, the Dylan loving skeptic, all on a trip from Jersey to crash the hotel, and then the broadcast. Each character has their quirks and motives (my favorite is the adorable Wendie Jo Sperber as Rosie, who meets a complete Beatles geek in Richard ‘Ringo’ Klaus, while ripping up the hotels carpet because maybe, just maybe, the boys might have walked on it), and the fun really starts when the group is separated in the hotel, and fate, as crazy as it comes, eventually helps the core find each other, in the end, at the famous broadcast, which is staged to a tee, complete with Will Jordan’s hilarious Sullivan impersonation, performing poodles, and Brylcreem commercials.
“I Wanna Hold Your Hand” is a wonderful time capsule, not just for the constant Beatles songs on the radio (from “Please Please Me” and “With the Beatles”), but for the atmosphere, and the funny, likable characters that populate the journey. If it’s all a tad over-the-top, that’s okay (wasn’t Beatlemania a bit much to begin with?), because the whole package is a delight from begin to end. Try watching Nancy Allen (as the ever softening bride-to-be Pam) after she accidentally sneaks into the lads hotel room, confiscates glasses and comb hair, riffles through the clothes in the closet, and makes orgasmic suggestions to Paul’s bass (a shot during the concert at the pitch of ecstasy is even more sexually suggestive), without thinking about how unimaginable the whole situation must have been; for young girls, for jealous teenage boys, for hotel security, for radio disk jockeys, for American musicians who hadn’t seen this since Elvis, and for John, Paul, George, and Ringo (both the oldest, and the youngest Beatle, according to Rosie), who must have found the exposure both exciting and terribly exhausting. “There are more things in this life than marriage,” Pam tells her stiff fiancé, who wonders “like what?” In 1964, for instance, as Zemeckis’ great and exuberant comedy tells us, with beautiful accuracy, “…like the Beatles.”by Adam Suraf