Where is the film "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" during the anniversary?

Conspicuous by it's absence in the recent Beatles media frenzy has been the film "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"...you would think there would be a high-profile blu-ray reissue, or at least a few cable showings. Is there some music rights issue keeping the film out of the public eye? I know the old dvd is still available, but it seems strange that more wasn't done with the movie during the 50th anniversary of the event.

 

I'd love a BD release of "Hand" but I suspect it's one of those movies that the studio doesn't think would sell well enough to be worth the effort.

Genuinely wonderful film - for my money, still the best thing Zemeckis ever did:

http://www.dvdmg.com/iwannaholdyourhand.shtml

 

Outside of us here, I don't think this movie is that well-known...

 

Given how few responses this thread has generated, I'm not sure it's that well-known HERE either!

 

Is that the comedy with the chubby girl and the Jerry Lewis monkey boy? . I LOVE that movie! That's a hysterical movie. Was it Robert Zemeckis?

 

Just watched it this morning. Although fictional, it gives a good representation of what those times were like. Good, but not great film. The closing credits on the DVD credit EMI/Capitol for the songs and Sullivan Productions for the video. I remember hearing somewhere that Zemekis thought he might get sued by the Beatles, but he never was.

 

It has been showing with regularity up here in Canada of late on the
pay-tv channels....must watch it.

 

watched it yesterday...such a fun movie.

 

they probably loved it as well.

 

IMO, all Beatles fans should own a copy! Beatlemania from the mania!

 

Yes, Bob Zemeckis. Terrific film, but you really have to be a fan or have to have been alive during that era to get a lot of its jokes. The scene where the two fans are hiding under the hotel bed when the actual Beatles walk in the room is priceless, as is the scene in the control room where you see "fake Beatles" on the Ed Sullivan stage with the real Beatles on all the monitors. Brilliant bit. Look at these shots:



I know people who worked with the late Wendy Jo Sperber (the chubby girl in the movie), and they say she was delightful, kind, and very funny on her later sitcoms.

 

Besides "Used Cars" , yes.

 

The Eugene character is great or was that Grease ?

 

Ringo Claus. Aka Eddie Deezen. Also the voice of the bratty kid in Polar Express.

 

Cute opening gag from the movie, with a BS employee correcting a misspelling on the marquee.

 

It's a fun movie and worth watching. There's some factual inconsistencies, (there's no alley on the side of the Ed Sullivan Theater or the Plaza Hotel, they're both open streets) but still a wonderful and lovingly funny film.

 

Aren't there several pictures made in the late 1970s/early 1980s that deal with music a generation earlier that you never see anymore? "I Want to hold your hand", "American Hot Wax" (Alan Freed), "Idolmaker" (male teen idols). You would think there is a market unless the boomers, Gen X and millienials all decide they don't want to see how stupid the boomers were.

 

Ehh, I think it's okay. I loved it as a kid, not so much as an adult:

http://www.dvdmg.com/usedcars.shtml

 

Wendie Jo always struck me as a probable nice person, and I always thought it was a shame she got pigeonholed into so many "fat girl" roles. She was usually the butt of fat jokes - and even ended up in that awful "Babes" TV series, which IIRC existed just to have a bunch of fat women together and make fun of them.

At least Zemeckis didn't push her down that path. I might be forgetting, but I don't think Wendie Jo's "Hand" or "Back to the Future" characters were subjected to "fat girl" elements. At least I don't think they made fun of her for her weight, unlike many of her other roles...

 

I remember watching this with my Mom and brothers so many years ago. I could never remember the name of it and had been thinking about it recently. We loved the film as kids even if you never did see the real Beatles. Even my Mom enjoyed the film but of course she grew up during The Beatles era. I should track down the DVD and relive some memories. Thanks for posting dirwuf, it was nice to be reminded of this film.

 

And the annoying ventriloquist in Spielberg's 1941! Very funny actor.

 

Tried watching that once. Didn't make it through.

 

Loved the way they did this. Is there a technical term to describe the way this was filmed?
This was also done to an extent on the recent 'Hairspray' movie.
Where the camera starts on a B/W TV, transforms into the screen of a TV camera.

Darryl

 

None, except "video playback on monitors." They usually hire a video playback guy do be in charge of stuff like that. The trick with Zemeckis was that they precisely came up with just the right shots, cued to simulate a live performance seen on multiple screens. I fell outta my chair when I first saw that, and couldn't figure out how it was done until I got the home video version and ran it a couple of times. Zemeckis is one of those guys who sneaks little things in his films that are really technically brilliant but go past you so fast, most audiences will never notice it.

 

"1941" is a pretty terrible movie - Eddie Deezen is almost the only good thing about it...