A Hard Day's Night (1964)

[3DEnterpriser]

Originally Posted by albabe

Haven't all the Beatles' Films, except "Let It Be," already been released on Blu? I have "AHDN," a not-so-impressive "Help," "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Yellow Sub," on Blu.

What you asked might be interesting, but I'd heard (months ago) that the Original "Let It be" will be released as a Bonus with the new Doc... Won't Disney Own the New Doc? And if so, wouldn't they be licensing "Let It Be?"

I'm not sure why they're holding off until 2021. Do they expect to make scads of cash in the Theaters?

I'm looking forward to seeing the New Doc AND the Original in High-Def (I have Let It Be on Laser Disc and a "Restored" Boot that looks better than the LD) - But it's sad that McCartney (and, I guess, Yoko) desperately need to reinvent those Last Years of the Beatles.

George and John were pretty outspoken about those final Beatles' Years. Both said they were horrible. George called the last year, "The Winter of Discontent."

Mark Lewisohn interviewed all of the Engineers, Sidemen, Studio Employees and Beatles Friends, and documented this Period really well in the "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions," and he comments that those years were danged awful for everyone around the Beatles.

Beatles' producer George Martin once, in a interview, summed up the period in two words: "disillusionment" and/or "disenchantment" - which, except for Woodstock, I understand (for that generation) could well describe the overall mood or atmosphere of the 1968-70 era itself.

Don't know abt Disney's exact stake in/connection to either the Jackson doc or "Let It Be", but NOTHING, or almost NOTHING, would beat a Criterion release/ set.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by albabe

Haven't all the Beatles' Films, except "Let It Be," already been released on Blu?

The Help and MMT blus are awful. Ruined by EE and DNR respectively. A CC release for both would be welcome.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Well, Mike Nesmith's wool hat was originally intended to be the fashion-gimmick equivalent of John Lennon's cap

No it wasn't. Nesmith always wore that before the show, in fact he wore it to his audition. The producers decided to try and make it a thing after the fact.

Not only that, but it was Davy Jones who wore the John Lennon cap (whom himself got it from Dylan, whom got it from Woody Guthrie) in the pilot episode.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by quickdraw

Hadn't seen this in years and finally watched the Criterion release this weekend. I kept thinking to myself "So, the Monkees totally ripped this film off for their TV show".

Bob Rafelson had the idea of The Monkees in the 50s, before Beatlemania. However he and Richard Lester were both influenced by The French New Wave thus the similarities. It is true though that AHDN is the straw that finally gave studios the go-ahead to Rafelson to make his show, thinking they could capitalize on Beatlemania. Which they did.

[albabe]

Originally Posted by 20th Century Boy

The Help and MMT blus are awful. Ruined by EE and DNR respectively. A CC release for both would be welcome.

Help was definitely not the greatest of shakes. But I thought McCartney signed-off on Magical Mystery Tour?

What's "EE" and "CC?"

[BluZone]

EE = Edge enhancement
CC = Criterion Collection

[HuggyBear73]

Anyone think this will eventually get a standard case edition soon? Digipak Been out 6 yrs now.

[CMNPlanet]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Anyone think this will eventually get a standard case edition soon? Digipak Been out 6 yrs now.

Since the booklet would have to be extensively re-designed or even severely edited to work in a keep case (the keep case, BD-only version in Rock Box set omits the booklet completely), I can only see a situation like Breathless or Tokyo Story where they pare down to smaller digipak when they drop the DVDs.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by albabe

Help was definitely not the greatest of shakes. But I thought McCartney signed-off on Magical Mystery Tour?

What's "EE" and "CC?"

I'm sure he signs off on every Beatle release, but quality control has its ups and downs in Bealteland. (Like how the Ron Howard Beatle movies is in fake widescreen rather than it's OAR (Original Aspect Ratio).

Personally I think the new LIB movie by Peter Jackson may be scrubbed of grain.

Still hoping for the best.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by CMNPlanet

Since the booklet would have to be extensively re-designed or even severely edited to work in a keep case (the keep case, BD-only version in Rock Box set omits the booklet completely), I can only see a situation like Breathless or Tokyo Story where they pare down to smaller digipak when they drop the DVDs.

If they want to keep the book, instead of having to put the it in the digipak, it could easily fit inside the same slipbox with an amaray case, in the same way the old Target exclusive of The Devil Wears Prada DVD did... so they could just do like that. The book by itself only slightly sticks out more than a normal case. So it'd look like this, just with a thicker book.

[Show spoiler]

[Greg Z]

This looks interesting. And expensive. A Hard Day's Night in 4K
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VQ...ab5fb57a33d527

[RICKBONDOO7]

Originally Posted by Greg Z

This looks interesting. And expensive. A Hard Day's Night in 4K
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VQ...ab5fb57a33d527

Yes ! Too Expensive ! The Criterion Bluray will do for now. Help! needs a New Remastered release !

[thegrandfacade]

In case anyone was curious, I emailed Criterion asking about whether or not A Hard Day's Night would get a standalone Blu-ray release, and got this reply back from Jon Mulvaney:

"To my knowledge, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT is not on the immediate schedule to be re-released as an individual Blu-ray. The good news is that we are phasing out of dual editions as we run out of inventory."

Alas.

[3DEnterpriser]

Originally Posted by CMNPlanet

Since the booklet would have to be extensively re-designed or even severely edited to work in a keep case (the keep case, BD-only version in Rock Box set omits the booklet completely), I can only see a situation like Breathless or Tokyo Story where they pare down to smaller digipak when they drop the DVDs.

Actually, Criterion also made AHDN available as a standalone DVD set (which I believe is still in print) in a regular DVD (double-disc) case, which I imagine contained a booklet, possibly edited down a bit.

[rotatingfish]

Originally Posted by Greg Z

This looks interesting. And expensive. A Hard Day's Night in 4K

I imported this from Japan to Ireland, here are the contents, all disc menus are in English:

Disc 1 (4K Ultra HD NO HDR):
A Hard Day's Night (1h 27m 19s)

Audio:
Stereo (English),
Mono (English),
DTS-HD Master Audio (English),
Audio Commentary with Barrie Melrose (2nd Assistant Director & Location Manager), Dennis O'Dell (Associate Producer), Betty Glasow (Hairdresser), Paul Wilson (Camera Operator), Gilbert Taylor (Director of Photography), Roy Benson (2nd Assistant Editor), Pamela Finch {neé Tomling} (1st Assistant Editor), Gordon Daniel (Sound Editor), Jim Roddan (Dialogue Editor), John Junkin (played "Shake"), Jeremy Lloyd (played "Tall Dancer At The Disco"), Lionel Blair (played himself, credited as "T.V. Choreographer"), Anna Quayle (played "Millie"), David Janson (played "Young Boy") & Terry Hooper (played "Casino Croupier")

Subtitles:
Main {dialogue of the film} (Japanese),
Audio Commentary (Japanese)

Disc 2 (Region Free Blu-ray):
Content is identical to Disc 1, except the film is only in 1080p of course.

Disc 3 (Region Free Blu-ray):
"Special"

The supplements play as chapters of one big timeline totalling 3h 10m 52s

1. You Can't Do That! The Making of A Hard Day's Night (1h 2m 12s)
2. Things They Said Today (36m 32s)
3. The Beatles: The Road To A Hard Day's Night (27m 42s)
4. In Their Own Voices: The Beatles on A Hard Day's Night (18m 10s)
5. Anatomy of a Style {1. A Hard Day's Night, 2. I Should Have Known Better, 3. Can't Buy Me Love, 4. And I Love Her, 5. She Loves You} (17m 21s)
6. Picturewise (27m 14s)
7. Trailer {2014 Rerelease, with Janus Films logo omitted} (1m 39s)

Audio: English (all)
Subtitles: Japanese (all)

On a first skim-through, the 4K disc offers a modest but noticeable increase in detail over either the included Blu or the Criterion Blu. There's no HDR, so the improvement isn't as striking as something like Schindler's List, the only black and white (well, 97% black and white) 4K disc I own to reasonably compare it to, this is more like the difference in quality that the similarly HDR-free 4K discs of Song To Song and The Neon Demon have over their respective Blu-rays.

On my humble 5.1 setup the audio mixes sound identical to Criterion's. The minor (to my ears) audio flaw around 34:13 as referenced in Carbo3D & NomadGator's user reviews of the Criterion Blu is still there in DTS-HD & Stereo but not the Mono track.

The audio commentary is identical to Criterion's, in fact the only supplements not carried over from Criterion are Richard Lester's Oscar-nominated 1959 short The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film, a Miramax re-release trailer from 2000 and their generously sized booklet.

I can't read a word of Japanese, but there are some nice photos in the main booklet (which seems to include an essay from Japanese rock group Glim Spanky), and more in one that looks like an orange scrapbook with photos by Bruce & Martha Karsh and some newspaper clippings. There is a slightly more expensive version of this set that includes a T-Shirt which seems to be limited to 500 sets, I opted for the cheaper T-shirt-free edition.

Both the standard Blu-ray discs have a Region A label but play fine in my Region B locked player. While a little on the pricy side, the package certainly gives the Criterion a run for its money, although true completists will want to hang onto their bonus discs from the Region 2 DVD as well.

In a word? Gear!