I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978 film)

"Focus!!!! FOCUS!!!!!!"

 

We used to have a huge local film festival. This was after Wayne Huizenga purchased Blockbuster Video and moved it's H.Q. from Texas to Fort Lauderdale. As was his style, he put a ton of money behind the festival and we had so many films, with tons of independent films. They were always giving problems during projection. The film would stop and the house lights would come up. Everybody would wait...

 

Yep. That too!

 

My favorite is the print getting stuck and burning in the gate...

 

Those of us who grew up with 8mm home movies remember this smell intimately.

Burning celluloid is something the get your nose's immediate attention.

It the theater's you get more of the visual experience, while at home, you are treated to the full monty. You never forget the smell that goes with the visual effects.

I bet, during the early days of film, that theater many theater attendee's did remember the smell of burning nitrate based films and the fires they were known to often cause. But, those theater experiences exceed my time.

One year in H.S., I took AV as an elective. When a teacher wanted to show a film in class, often they scheduled it with the AV department, who would received in the film that the teacher ordered and I would bring that film, together with a 16mm projector to the classroom and run the film.

When they worked right, the B&H (Bell & Howell) projectors worked like a dream, but they liked new film that was in perfect condition. They were famous for "eating" film after the "loop" was lost.

The older Kalart Victor 16mm projector's were much kinder on the film itself. They also had better sound. They were all older designs and had tube amps that had to warm up, but they had an external speaker that you could position somewhere in front, close to the screen and they had pleasant sounding midrange's.



Brings back memories...

 

Always loved this movie, so much so that I had to buy the DVD. The scene where the father and the barber are looking at the kid with the Beatle 'do always made me think of Marathon Man. I never enjoyed the scenes with Paul Newman's daughter, tho', but maybe a lot of folkies in those days were just that annoying---if so, she sure acted the part true to form! Wendie Jo Sperber's passing at such a young age was tragic; she was a big part of the reason I bought the DVD's with the two seasons of Bosom Buddies. I especially like watching this movie after viewing The Beatles First US Visit doc. How does it go, oh yeah, "a splendid time is guaranteed for all..."

 

I remember a few times the yelling from the crowd would get no response so I would bite the bullet and go knock on the projection booth door and...no one there.....id always imagined the projectionist manning the helm!

 

In the older days, movies were shown with upright projectors with 35mm reels that lasted minutes each. There were two projectors side by side, when the reel on the first projector was finished, the projectionist would switch over to the second projector the reel on the first projector was rewound back into its original spool, removed and the third real was threaded into the projector. So in the old days, the projectionist was pretty much always in the projection booth to ensure that the projection system was operating properly. But, back then, there was only a single projection booth in a movie theater.

Later, even though movie reels were still shipped out and delivered to theaters in the same 20 minute reels, the projection system changed to a large horizontal platter. The reels were spliced together into one really big spool of film that sat on a horizontal platter. The platter was large enough to contain the whole movie, giving the projectionist more time. But as single theaters gave way to multiplexes, one projectionist could now serve several theaters, cutting back on overhead labor.

 

I remember when our local cinema was broken into in the middle of the night and the miscreant was trying to make off with Raiders of the Lost Ark, if memory serves. He must've thought there would be a bunch of 20-minute reels and ended up trying to make off with the huge horizontal reel....film started coming off the reel, dozens of feet of it, and led from the booth towards where he broke in, whereupon he said eff it and dropped the thing.

 

New Criterion special edition coming in March, finally in HD!

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

 

Oh my - that's the best news I've had in a looong time! Can't wait!

 

I can't imagine what the cost of licensing all the songs are though. It's really up to Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia what they want to charge. There is no fixed cost for sync rights.

 

I managed movie theaters in San Francisco back in the 70’s. We had union projectionist that were real pros. They took great pride in their presentation of the film. They would often watch the screen through binoculars to monitor the focus. They would customize the dimming if the lights...opening of the curtain, etc to enhance to enjoyment experience of the audience.

 

Yeah, that's the reason I worried the film would never hit BD. It was a potentially iffy financial proposition when the DVD hit in 2004, and that's back when physical media sold like crazy.

Even in that climate, "Hand" was never gonna be a big seller, so I can't imagine its prospects now.

Though Criterion nuts will buy it, and it'll also appeal to Beatles and Zemeckis fans, so it's got that going for it.

Happily for me, Criterion will send me a review copy, but even if they didn't, I'd pony up the dough. This is close to being as "must have" as it comes for me...

 

this is fantastic news!!!! thanks for the heads-up...

 

We'll never know, but I can't help thinking about negotiations the music licensing. Nobody's going to publicize the number, but I do have the data for the documentary Rock School about The Paul Green School of Rock Music that later became the School of Rock.

$600,000 of the budget went to music licensing rights. And that's with Gail Zappa and Sharon Osbourne giving them especially nice deals on Frank's and Ozzy's music.

Someone must have negotiated something very very kind on the part of the Beatles.

 

Maybe all involved said "hey, we've got enough money" and gave them the songs for free.

Ha ha - of course not!

 

Isn't it possible they are still under some previous licensing agreement?

 

Wow, that cover artwork on the upcoming Criterion release is hideous. I really detest just about all the Criterion-created artwork of the past several years. It’s almost never faithful to the original theatrical artwork (movie poster or titles) and often the overall style isn’t era-appropriate, either. I used to admire Criterion for the packaging and artwork, at least back in the laserdisc era.

 

ooof, youre right its hideous. would be nice if they did a cast commentary with those that are still with us, eddie, nancy etc.. but its nice theyre keeping the directors commentary, its a good one (a lost art!)

 

As was mentioned by Vidiot earlier, the rights originally secured were for theatrical presentation and television, and did not include rights for home video.

 

Of course, but it has been on home video since the vhs days, so perhaps that later agreement is still in effect.

 

Could be, but it doesn't seem like the "Apple way" for them to sell the rights for future video formats after DVD. Seems like they'd want to renegotiate for every release.

Whatever happened, it's awesome that we're getting this. It's probably the last time the movie will see a video release, as I doubt it'll ever go 4K UHD...

 

I saw this film in the theater as a fifth grader amongst a handful of people during its original run. I have it on DVD and will definitely get the Criterion version (despite the awful artwork). My favorite scene was with Wendie Jo tossing herself out of the car, rolling to a stop, getting up to run to the phone booth, and throwing a handful of change at the pay phone in order to call Murray the K. It never fails to make me laugh. Seeing Eddie swinging from the balcony microphone near the end is funny too.

I thought they did a great job with using the Sullivan footage on the video monitors while blocking the faces of the Beatles body doubles.

It may not be a successful film, but it certainly is fun.

 

Loved it, haven't seen it since it was released.
Had a bit of a crush on Nancy Allen back then..
Need to seek it out again.