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I Wanna Hold Your Hand



On February 9, 1964, the Beatles made their first live appearance on American television on The Ed Sullivan Show, ratcheting up the frenzy of a fanbase whose ecstatic devotion to the band heralded an explosive new wave of youth culture. I Wanna Hold Your Hand looks back to that fateful weekend, following six teenagers, each with their own reasons for wanting to see the Fab Four, from New Jersey to Manhattan on a madcap mission to meet the band and score tickets to the show. With this rollicking first feature, director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale established themselves as a filmmaking team par excellence, adept at mining America's cultural memory for comedy and adventure with a winning mixture of sweet nostalgia and playful irreverence.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation among Zemeckis, Gale, and executive producer Steven Spielberg
• New interview with actors Nancy Allen and Marc McClure
• Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Zemeckis and Gale
• The Lift (1972) and A Field of Honor (1973), two early short films by Zemeckis
• Trailer and radio spots
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Scott Tobias

domino harvey wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 7:00 pm Confirmed via latest newsletter clue

That was ninja-level topic locking/unlocking.

Did we know this was coming? I don't know anything about it other than a lady I used to work for was an extra in it and told us about her Hollywood Adventure often. She'll definitely buy it on the day of release!

There was a Robert Zemeckis phantom page back in the day. But wouldn’t have guessed for this.

Here's the trailer

It is a fun film though and deserves to be better known in the Zemeckis canon. You can kind of feel its influence on the shenanigans behind the scenes of the Enchantment Under The Sea dance in Back To The Future in this, as the various girls split up and have their own simultaneous adventures surrounding the Beatles performing at the Ed Sullivan show (Zemeckis has always been great as a filmmaker at juggling multiple plot strands at once). Plus all of the usage of pop culture icons as larger than life, but almost untouchable figures always off in the background feels like it anticipates Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump.

There is that sense of a somewhat idealised look back at a previous period in many a Zemeckis film, but an approach which even here seems less about totally wallowing in nostalgia (though there is of course some of that appeal to the familiar to draw audiences in) but more to look at key events tangentially through a side story that provides a more 'knowing' (wry, distanced, even subversive and poking fun) and contemporary perspective. See something like Allied or The Walk more recently (or even the rather gaudy, action-packed entirely motion captured CGI adaptations of classic literature, although that was Zemeckis's least appealing period to me). Even though I am not a fan of Forrest Gump I have to admit that it does that too, although I feel it ends up making some worryingly broad politically conservative pro-down home simple folk going off to war, pro-big business, celeb cameo as shorthand for importance (by contrast in I Wanna Hold Your Hand the Beatles are only important as structuring elements to provide a quest whilst the film itself focuses on the trials the girls face in attempting to reaching their goal of meeting their idols), anti-long haired hippie points by doing so!

ptatler wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 7:03 pmDid we know this was coming?

Member AftertheRain mentioned back in 2016 that he remembered another member heard from Bob Gale that it was coming from Criterion, so I vaguely recalled this was forthcoming. Pretty long gestation period, but I guess Zemeckis is always busy

This is my favorite newsletter clue so far.

I agree with everything Colin says above; I still think it's one of Zemeckis' best films and it's a great example of the comic energy he used to be able to dredge up in tandem with Gale. And to also echo Colin, as a Beatles fan it's fun but the Beatles themselves are nearly beside the point because the film is really about fandom, and youth. Wendie Jo Sperber's performance is just note-perfect to me; whenever there's some anniversary retrospective about the Beatles on Sullivan her flipping out in the elevator is what I always picture, and makes that moment seem so much more present to me than any talking-head going about the world changing or whatever.

The existing DVD has an excellent commentary by Zemeckis and Gale.

I was a big fan of the film when it was released forty years ago (!) and saw it twice theatrically. One's appreciation may be determined by how tolerant the viewer is toward the Eddie Deezen character (nonetheless, it's a better showcase for the actor than 1941). Part of the charm of the film is that it takes its lead from American Graffiti and inter-cuts the various escapades in, more-or-less, real time. The previous comments are correct in that the Beatles' appearance is really only the MacGuffin to build the story around. I'm not even sure the film relies much on nostalgia for its effectiveness and it never approaches the pandering nostalgia or crass sentimentality of Gump.

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You surely know perfectly well what Romano's character means, though

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Practically the same joke shows up in This is the End, only directed at "hipsters" rather than "the internet." I've heard this a couple times in real life, too. It seems a little odd to me, as well, since I never used to have the impression that people felt quite that strongly about it, but for whatever reason, Forrest Gump seems to have become the go-to example of a supposedly widely beloved movie that toxic snarky people like to put down.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars are probably my favorite two Zemeckis films by a good margin, and I think the 35mm prints screened at MoMA not too long ago were actually brand new. [EDIT: My memory is at fault - I came across a post I made here shortly after the screening, and I noted that they were DCP's.] As much as I love the Beatles, I'm always wary of things that are clearly made with the idea that "the fans" will go see this no matter what - it usually means it's disposable. But I finally saw this due to good word of mouth and it's quite good. It helps that we don't see a re-enactment of the Beatles played by actors - it's all focused on their impact on youth culture.

Nancy Allen said Criterion will be releasing this in March, so there's one title we can all add to our predix in a week

Posted on their social media today

Ira and Georgia from Yo La Tengo introduced a screening of this several years ago. Longshot but since they have an existing relationship with Criterion I idly wonder if they could be commissioned to participate in the "more!"

I'm really excited about the inclusion of Zemeckis' early short films!

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 7:08 pm

Posted on their social media today

Evidently for several decades running Zemeckis has no one in his life to tell him how terrible his hair plugs look.

PfR73 wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 10:28 pm I'm really excited about the inclusion of Zemeckis' early short films!

Those have been available on a Fox-distributed set called Reel Talent: First Films by Legendary Directors.
I wish this set had included a film made by Gale while they were at USC.

Spielberg's pretty good about participating in supplements but I'm actually a bit surprised he was able to make time to do a group conversation. I'm actually looking forward to watching that.

I Wanna Hold Your Beaver (sorry)

Bluray.com Sounds like the picture quality is a mixed bag.

That's disappointing. I did a search and found a post I made shortly after catching this at MoMA in 2015 - they did indeed screen a DCP, and it looked quite good. FWIW, this was part of a retrospective that was launched in conjunction with the premiere of The Walk, and a really good-looking DCP was also shown for Used Cars (which was also released on Blu-Ray since that screening). There's no indication on MoMA's site that these were 4K restorations, but regardless, if the DCP for I Wanna Hold Your Hand looks that good, it's frustrating the same can't be done for a Blu-Ray version of the film.