The Beatles (from left: John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney) arrive for the premiere of their film “A Hard Day’s Night” in Liverpool, England on July 10, 1964. The film premiered in America on August 12.
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60 years ago on Monday, George Harrison’s first guitar chord sparked hysteria in American cinemas.
The premiere of A Hard Day’s Night in 500 theaters across the country increased anticipation for the film’s release in the Chicago area a few weeks later, coinciding with the Beatles’ North American tour, which included a stop at the International Amphitheatre on September 5.
In the heart of America, Beatlemania was in full swing.
Kathy Roche McCoy, then nine years old, was among the hundreds of young people who crowded into the old Arlington Theater in downtown Arlington Heights for the suburban premiere on Friday, September 11.
Shot in the style of cinéma vérité, the musical comedy follows several days in the life of the group, from parties to preparations for a television appearance.
A September 1964 movie schedule advertises “A Hard Day’s Night,” which was playing in suburban theaters, including the Arlington Theater in downtown Arlington Heights.
Daily Herald Archives
“I went in there and from the moment the movie started, the screaming was so loud you couldn’t understand the dialogue,” McCoy said. “I mean, some of those girls acted like they were really there.”
Larry Andres, then 13 years old, was also there at the first performance.
“We were in line. I remember the line stretching down Evergreen Avenue in front of the theater, along the side and all the way down Arlington Heights Road,” said Andres, a retired Buffalo Grove Fire Department lieutenant. “The girls wouldn’t stop screaming. They screamed from the moment the movie started until it ended. You couldn’t hear anything. You couldn’t hear the lines of the movie. Every time the Beatles opened their mouths, the girls screamed.”
In fact, the Arlington Heights Herald – then a weekly newspaper and predecessor of the Daily Herald – described the spectacle as follows: “The seats were full and screaming was the order of the day that evening.”
“BEATLEMANIA,” the newspaper says, “is not limited to major cities like New York and Chicago.”
This September 10, 1964, Arlington Heights Herald newspaper clipping shows the Fab Four at several theaters in the northwest suburbs on the eve of their film debut.
Daily Herald Archives
The Arlington Theatre, the Des Plaines Theatre and the York Theatre in Elmhurst were among the suburban theaters that, according to the Herald’s movie listings, sold advance tickets for the Beatles’ film debut, which was unusual at the time.
One listing shows that admission to see “A Hard Day’s Night” in Arlington was $1, but regulars like Andres – who became a film fan after taking his grandfather to the movies every week – remember that the price for children was just 25 cents.
A bag of popcorn cost 15 cents, he remembers.
The film opened on August 28 at the Woods Theater in Chicago on the loop. Theater owner Eddie Silverman had the parking attendants wear mushroom head wigs on opening day.
A Herald movie schedule shows that the film also premiered that night at a suburban drive-in theater. The ad for the Starview Outdoor Theater — on the corner of Route 20 and Route 59 near Streamwood — proclaimed, “The Beatles in their first full-length, hilarious, action-packed movie! 6 brand new songs plus your favorite Beatles songs!”
Other theaters that have shown the film since September 11 include the Oasis Drive-In on the border between Des Plaines and Elk Grove Village and the Mount Prospect Cinema, where Elvis Presley’s “GI Blues” was shown as a supporting film.
Back in Arlington and Des Plaines, “A Hard Day’s Night” was performed along with Bobby Vinton’s “Surf Party.”
The Arlington Theatre (pictured here in 1957) hosted films and live entertainment from its opening in 1925 until its closing in 1986. In 1987, an 11-story apartment building was built on the same site—on Evergreen Avenue near Northwest Highway.
Courtesy of Arlington Heights Historical Society
A mother from Hoffman Estates told the Herald in 1964 that ringing in the ears and headaches were “just part of the price of motherhood” when she went to the movies with her 10-year-old daughter and friends to see the Beatles film.
After the outcry died down, some returned to their local theaters for a closer look at the film. Andres says he has rewatched it many times – it was the first of five major motion pictures the band appeared in – and he believes the films are still “relevant” decades later.
“The Beatles movies were good movies. They weren’t just superficial. They were really well made. They’re very artistic,” Andres said.
Debbie Venezia, executive director of the Wheaton-based After Hours Film Society, agrees. Her group has shown the film three times over the nonprofit’s 35-year history, including last month at the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove.
The irreverent, 87-minute documentary-style presentation is peppered with one-liners, jokes and a dozen original Beatles songs. Venezia and other critics cite the film as an early inspiration for what later became the music video.
The Beatles – Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon – made their film debut in 1964 in “A Hard Day’s Night” directed by Richard Lester.
Courtesy of Janus Films
“It’s so invigorating to watch them and see their youth when you look at them as a much older person,” said Venezia, a Beatles fan who first saw the film as a little girl at the DuPage Theater in Lombard. “And you see that they have this charisma, they have this vitality. They weren’t artificially created. (They were) naturals musically and personality-wise. They were themselves.”
The band members cross boundaries and challenge authority throughout the film, despite their manager’s efforts to keep them in check. In one scene, Ringo Starr leaves the recording studio and gets into trouble with the law. In another, the band runs down the steps of a fire escape into an open field to sing “Can’t Buy Me Love” – only to be later told off for being on private property.
“They broke the rules but didn’t hurt anyone,” Venezia said.
McCoy, then an elementary school student at St. James School in Arlington Heights, got her first record, “Rubber Soul,” a year after seeing the Beatles’ first movie. She remembers how different the record sounded “than what was playing on my parents’ stereo.”
“It was just a coming of age,” she said. “In that respect, it was revolutionary.”
