#967: ZEMECKIS, Robert: I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978)

ZEMECKIS, Robert (United States)
I Wanna Hold Your Hand [1978]
Spine #967
Blu-ray

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 fan base 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 New Jersey teenagers, each with different reasons for wanting to see the Fab Four, on a madcap mission to Manhattan 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.

99 minutes

Color
5.1 Surround
1:85:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2019

Director/Writers

Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.

Zemeckis was 27 when he directed I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

The Film

Naturally, the girls are named Pam (Nancy Allen), Janis (Susan Kendall Newman), Grace (Theresa Saldana) and Rosie (Wendie Jo Sperber) … get it?

They’re all huge Beatle fans (although Pam and Janis have to be “converted”) and they each have their own reasons for being at the hotel and later at the Ed Sullivan studios.

Pam is engaged to Eddie (James Houghton), and feels embarrassed acting like a screaming teenager.

Janis is initially completely anti-Beatles and would rather listen to Peter, Paul & Mary. She is improbably won over by Tony (Bobby Di Cicco), who also hates the Beatles (he prefers The Four Seasons [the group, not the Giuliani landscaping business!] and Peter (Christian Juttner), whose father (Read Morgan) wants him to get a haircut, in exchange for three tickets to the show.

Grace is a would-be photographer and just wants to get some pictures of the boys.

Rosie is the personification of Beatlemania, and is in love with Paul. She is continually hysterics.

Larry (Marc McClure) has the hots for Grace, and “borrows” one of his undertaker dad’s limousines to drive the whole gang from New Jersey to New York.

Richard “Ringo” Klaus (a stupefyingly annoying Eddie Deezen) is the token male Beatles fan.

Murray the “K” plays himself — 15 years after the events in question here, and just a few years before he passed away from cancer.

Will Jordan is Ed Sullivan. A nice touch at the end of the show, Sullivan mentions a guy who does impressions of him, a fellow named Will Jordan. Cute. I have a good friend who played Ed in a Vegas revue with four musicians who were among the best Beatles imitators I’d ever heard (before I discovered The Analogues!) …

**

The whole thing might be unbearable except for the fact that this was Zemeckis’ debut film — he was Steven Spielberg’s protégé. At $2.8 million, the film was a bust — he followed it up with another flop: Used Cars (1980) — but after that the hits just kept on coming:

• Romancing the Stone (1984)
• Back to the Future trilogy (1985, ‘89 & ‘90)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
• Forrest Gump (1994)
• Contact (1997)
• Cast Away (2000)
• Pinocchio (2022)

**

There are moments where you can see the future Zemeckis — all put together — but this mostly a mess:

• a 27-year-old Nancy Allen getting orgasmic over Paul’s bass (which is wrongly right-handed!) is just embarrassing;
• Sperber and Deezen are just completely annoying;
• the ticket giveaways from the radio station are so bad that Zemeckis felt the need to reuse one which had already been ruined (which Beatle is the oldest and youngest?), so that Rosie could get her free ticket; and
• Tony trying to chop down the satellite dish an ax is just completely stupid.

One cool scene features Tony and Larry standing in front of an art-cinema that is playing Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying (1957) {Spine #146} …

The redeeming feature of this film is certainly its soundtrack. Nothing but Early Beatles.

But then again — to avoid all the fades and cuts — why not watch A Hard Day’s Night (1964) {Spine #711} again?

Film Rating (0-60):

51

The Extras

The Booklet

Eight-page wraparound featuring an essay by Scott Tobias.

“For Zemeckis and Gale, comedy is about timing and rhythm and carefully orchestrated payoffs, not an assortment of brainstormed gags … that storytelling cohesion is essential to I Wanna Hold Your Hand, which is about a blissful kind of collective madness. A day that begins with a carload of kids heading to New York for different reasons — to get close to Paul, to impress a girl, to protest the band, or perhaps, in a couple of cases, just to stave off boredom — ends with surrender to a cultural phenomenon bigger than they could have ever expected, much less resisted. It’s also a statement of purpose for Zemeckis, a commercial filmmaker who has succeeded, time and again, in bringing these kinds of moments to a broad swath of American moviegoers. For him, Beatlemania is about the possibilities of shared experiences, about what popular art can do to an audience. All perfectly normal.”

Commentary

From 2004 featuring Zemeckis and Gale.

At least they’re humble enough to point out all the ridiculous mistakes (L.A. signage, continuity errors) in their debut. Otherwise a useless commentary.

Conversation

Among Zemeckis, Gale and executive producer Spielberg.

A love-fest.

Interview

With actors Allen and McClure.

Another love-fest.

The Lift (1972)

Meh.

A Field of Honor (1973)

This is the one that caught Spielberg’s attention.

Trailer and radio spots

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

51 + 34 =

85

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