Band Movies: Direct Them If You Can

In December, the Collingswood Movie Club will be meeting on Monday, December 23, instead of its usual fourth Tuesday slot (the 24th, the library is closed).  

On that night, we will be showing A Hard Day’s Night (1964), the classic Beatles film.  I chose this film over Help! (1965) because, despite favoring the latter’s plot—Ringo being offered as a human sacrifice—I preferred the music and absolute franticness of the former.

I choose the movies we show based on many factors, one of which is my predilection for the films’ directors. Thus far, I have shown 20 films with twenty different directors.

I also like to show the lesser-known films of the directors, if possible. I hope
to keep this aspect of my choices going indefinitely, as much as I want to show
another Coen Brothers or Kubrick or Fritz Lang or Martin Scorsese film.

A Hard Day’s Night director Richard Lester was born in Philadelphia.  The film was his career breakthrough.  He also made Help! and other solid sixties and seventies films, like The Knack…and How to Get it (1965); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966); How I Won the War (1967); Petulia (1968); The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers (1973 & 74); and Superman II (1980) – conceded to be the superior Superman film.

Lester’s strength as a director is with fast-paced comedies and comedy-dramas.  He started his career working with Sellers and Spike Milligan, doing the legendary Goon Show. Before the Beatles film, Lester had one feature to his credit, The Mouse on the Moon (1963), a follow-up to the Peter Sellers hit, The
Mouse That Roared (1959).

This work directly led to his being tapped to direct A Hard Day’s Night, which critic Andrew Sarris called “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals.”  

Inevitably, imitators followed. The next year another English band, The Dave Clark Five, made a film called Catch Us if You Can (1965), also known as Having a Wild Weekend. 

The band was very popular but over time has been swallowed up by the collective wave of Beatles and Rolling Stones popularity and longevity. I remember two of my friends in the 8th grade arguing over which band was better, the Stones or Dave Clark. A legitimate argument at the moment, but I should note that the cooler of the two guys preferred the Stones.

The odd thing about Catch Us If You Can (a name of one their hits) is that it only had three songs.  The film focused more on plot and characterization, dooming its box office to only the most fanatical Dave Clark fans, like my friend on the losing side of the argument.  Perhaps a reason for this is that its director, a newcomer as was Richard Lester, is John Boorman.  

Boorman had not directed a film yet and, despite its failure, he went on to direct Point Blank (1967) and Hell in the Pacific (1968), starring Lee Marvin. Subsequently, he made Deliverance (1972), Excalibur (1981), and Hope and Glory (1987), a latter a strong candidate for the movie night.  

The Dave Clark film showed Boorman’s strengths if not his boldness to realize a more serious work than jukebox musicals deserve.

Another Beatles imitator, The Monkees, released the film Head in 1968. The Monkees were the Back Street Boys of their day and managed to become a
respectable and very popular musical presence. They had a television show,
which, looking at them on cable channels, are quite satiric and funny. One of the reasons for their success is the director of six episodes: Bob Rafelson.

Rafelson, like Lester and Boorman, had only television experience. The Monkees show and film subsequently launched a career ran strong for a decade. In 1970, he made Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson, who is one of the screenwriters of Head. Indeed, Rafelson’s best work is strongly linked to Nicholson: The King of Marvin Gardens (1972); The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981); and Blood and Wine (1996).

Unfortunately, for Rafelson and The Monkees, Head was released two months after the television show had been cancelled. Several of the band members were also upset over not being allowed to contribute to the scriptwriting. Dissension followed, and the band was done.