In conjunction with Paul McCartney’s new documentary, Paul McCartney: Man On The Run, getting its TV premiere on Amazon’s Prime Video service this February 27, the latest installment of his “You Gave Me the Answer” online Q&A feature finds The Beatles legend reflecting on his personal film experiences.
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A fan named Katy asked Sir Paul to name his favorite film he’d worked on. She also wondered if there were any movies he almost made “that didn’t happen for one reason or another.”
McCartney chose The Beatles’ 1964 flick A Hard Day’s Night as his favorite and “most memorable” movie. Paul said he picked it “simply because it was the first one! We’d never been in a film before.”
McCartney proceeded to explain how the Fab Four wound up doing the movie. He noted that at the time, bands that were very successful sometimes would have the opportunity to make a film. Paul shared that The Beatles were interested in doing a movie. So, they asked their manager, Brian Epstein, if someone had approached the group with an offer to make a film… “and they had!”
McCartney revealed that the initial movie offered to The Beatles was a flick titled The Yellow Teddy Bears. However, the band passed on it down when the producers insisted on writing songs for the project themselves.
Paul then explained that United Artists eventually offered The Beatles their own movie, so the band chose a writer from their hometown, Liverpool. They liked named Alun Owen to write a script specifically for them. The band also picked the director, Richard Lester.
How ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ Came Together
Regarding why The Beatles chose Lester for A Hard Day’s Night, McCartney explained that the band members had loved a comedy movie he directed called The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film. The flick starred The Goons, a wacky comedy act that had been popular on British radio that included Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.
“It was a very silly little film!” Paul said. “It was black and white, and the silly scenes would be things like seeing someone in the distance across a field, walking towards the camera, and when he gets to the camera a boxing glove comes out and just hits him. We thought, ‘Wow, this is radical!’ We’d never seen anything as silly as that!”
As for Owen, McCartney explained that he had written a well-done TV play that aired in Liverpool. That play was titled No Trams to Lime Street. Paul noted that the Beatles members related to Owen because the writer came from a working-class background like they did.
McCartney pointed out that when it came to writing the script, Owen spent time hanging out with the band.
“[H]e joined us on a train journey and saw the things we did to mess around like playing with the little radio, and he put that in the film as a scene where there’s an old guy who comes and complains,” Paul noted. “He picked up the essence of The Beatles.”
McCartney concluded, “We were very pleased to be in our movie, and it was a great experience. It had a big impact on us: it’s where George [Harrison] met [his first wife, Pattie] Boyd, she was one of the schoolgirls in the [train] sequence, and the film was a big success actually. Not bad for our first one!”
More About the ‘Man On The Run’ Documentary
As previously reported, Man On The Run looks at McCartney’s life and solo career following The Beatles’ 1970 breakup. The documentary focuses on the formation and rise to popularity of Wings, the band Paul formed in the early 1970s with his wife, Linda, and ex-Moody Blues frontman Denny Laine.
The film includes previously unseen archival footage, as well as a bevy of photographs taken by Linda. It also features new interviews with Paul, his daughters Mary and Stella, all the surviving Wings members, Mick Jagger, The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Sean Ono Lennon, and others.
Before its Prime Video premiere, Man On The Run will be shown in select theaters around the world for one night only on Thursday, February 19. Tickets for the screenings went on sale on Wednesday, February 4, at 9 a.m. ET at ManOnTheRun.film.
The screenings will include, as a bonus, a Q&A between McCartney and the movie’s director, Morgan Neville.
(Photo by Max Scheler – K & K/Redferns)
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