I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND was the first film directed by Robert Zemeckis (it was also produced by Steven Spielberg). It's a fictional comedy that plays on a winning idea of having a group of New Jersey teenagers traveling into New York City with the goal of meeting The Beatles on their historic first trip to the United States, one early February weekend in 1964. Their adventures will take them right up to the momentous Sunday Night TV appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. The young actors here include: Nancy Allen (she plays an engaged girl who's too mature to get involved by something as trivial as The Beatles); Theresa Saldana (an aspiring reporter looking to snag exclusive photos of The Fab Four); Susan Kendall Newman (Paul Newman's daughter, playing a folk music lobbyist looking to expose the saccharine Beatles); Wendie Jo Sperber (a wildly obsessed Beatlemaniac who's in love with Paul); Eddie Deezen (bespectacled "geek actor for all seasons" with a serious Beatles addiction); and Bobby DiCicco and Marc McClure (two guys along for the ride who don't care much for the English quartet but tag along anyway to get the girls).
The movie is quite a distant cousin away from the classic American GRAFFITI. It's a wild day out, and its comic style includes a good dose of slapstick pratfalls and the like. Nerdy Eddie Deezen is at the center of most of the silliness, but Wendie Jo Sperber is well suited to her role as the biggest female Beatles Nut of the group. Theresa Saldana's character is a tad more interesting and complex, and Nancy Allen gives one of the better performances I've seen from her as the conflicted bride-to-be who feels herself helplessly switching allegiance from her fiancé in favor of John, Paul, George and Ringo. (The Beatles themselves only appear in the movie via old film clips; stand-ins are used and photographed from behind in key moments). Murray the "K", the original DJ who documented the Beatles' every move in New York, comes back a dozen or so years after the fact to recreate his old persona. Impressive is that none of the film was actually shot in New York, but the sets and subbing locations fooled me for many viewings until I ultimately found out it's actually California. A favorite scene capturing the a sign of those times centers around a younger boy who sports a moppish Beatles-like haircut, admonished by his typically conservative dad.
Finally, I wish to add that the most recent 2004 DVD release from Universal is not the best way to experience this movie. I had been pretty familiar with the film from seeing it several times on VHS, but that version was issued in the much preferred audio format of MONO. The 2004 DVD has since remixed the sound to an undesirable 5.1 arrangement which now almost completely drowns out the accompanying music soundtrack which consists of many vintage Beatles classic recordings, taken from the actual records. They were intended to be heard in the background more prominently right along with the spoken dialogue, but are now toned down whenever people are speaking to the point where you can barely decipher anything that's accompanying the talking. **1/2 out of ****
The movie is quite a distant cousin away from the classic American GRAFFITI. It's a wild day out, and its comic style includes a good dose of slapstick pratfalls and the like. Nerdy Eddie Deezen is at the center of most of the silliness, but Wendie Jo Sperber is well suited to her role as the biggest female Beatles Nut of the group. Theresa Saldana's character is a tad more interesting and complex, and Nancy Allen gives one of the better performances I've seen from her as the conflicted bride-to-be who feels herself helplessly switching allegiance from her fiancé in favor of John, Paul, George and Ringo. (The Beatles themselves only appear in the movie via old film clips; stand-ins are used and photographed from behind in key moments). Murray the "K", the original DJ who documented the Beatles' every move in New York, comes back a dozen or so years after the fact to recreate his old persona. Impressive is that none of the film was actually shot in New York, but the sets and subbing locations fooled me for many viewings until I ultimately found out it's actually California. A favorite scene capturing the a sign of those times centers around a younger boy who sports a moppish Beatles-like haircut, admonished by his typically conservative dad.
Finally, I wish to add that the most recent 2004 DVD release from Universal is not the best way to experience this movie. I had been pretty familiar with the film from seeing it several times on VHS, but that version was issued in the much preferred audio format of MONO. The 2004 DVD has since remixed the sound to an undesirable 5.1 arrangement which now almost completely drowns out the accompanying music soundtrack which consists of many vintage Beatles classic recordings, taken from the actual records. They were intended to be heard in the background more prominently right along with the spoken dialogue, but are now toned down whenever people are speaking to the point where you can barely decipher anything that's accompanying the talking. **1/2 out of ****