Filming “A Hard Day’s Night” • Day 1

This post documents the filming of “A Hard Day’s Night” on March 2, 1964.

Denis O’Dell was the producer of “A Hard Day’s Night,” and met The Beatles for the first time on this day:

[In December 1963,] Bud Ornstein, head of the European branch of United Artists films, called me two days after I got home with an offer to associate-produce a low-budget musical, as yet untitled, starring a pop group from Liverpool called the Beatles. Having been out of England for some considerable time I was one of a very small minority who was unfamiliar with the Beatles. I had heard of them of course, but I had been abroad much of the year and had missed [their] phenomenal rise in popularity. […] So I thanked Bud and told him that I would have to decline his offer as I needed a break.

If it had not been for a tiny twist of fate, that would have been the beginning, middle and end of my association with the Beatles. By pure chance, the phone call happened to come at a weekend when my teenage children, Denise, Shaun and Kevan, were visiting from the country. When they heard that I had turned down a film starring the Beatles they went berserk. They simply could nor believe thar I had just turned down the opportunity to work with their idols. I was simultaneously shocked and fascinated by their reaction. […] So appalled were my children at my gaffe that I felt compelled to call Bud back and accept the offer.

Denis O’Dell – From “At the Apple’s Core: The Beatles from the Inside“, 2002

I met the Beatles for the first time on the set of the movie itself, on the first day of shooting at London’s Paddington Station, where we were on board the train to film the opening journey sequences. Having been working so intensively preparing the film’s shooting schedule and locations, there had been no previous opportunity to meet up, and prior to this all communications had taken place via Neil Aspinall, then the Beatles’ personal assistant and road manager. My first contact with them involved giving them the schedule and explaining in some detail how we were going to shoot the film. […]

The Beatles were, without question, some of the most charming people I ever met, as was Brian Epstein. While they exhibited the same rapier wit and laconic humour I had seen them demonstrate in television and newspaper interviews, I was genuinely taken aback by their detachment from their extraordinary celebrity. Considering their popularity, they were remarkably well adjusted, which endeared them not only to their fans but to all those who worked with them, making the atmosphere on the set immensely buoyant and good-humoured.

Denis O’Dell – From “At the Apple’s Core: The Beatles from the Inside“, 2002

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group.

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