Story of movie I Wanna Hold Your Hand Film : I Wanna Hold Your Hand is a 1978 American comedy film directed and co-written by Robert Zemeckis, which takes its name from the 1963 song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles. It was produced and co-written by Bob Gale.
| I Wanna Hold Your Hand | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Zemeckis |
| Produced by | Tamara Asseyev Alex Rose |
| Written by | Robert Zemeckis Bob Gale |
| Starring | Nancy Allen Bobby Di Cicco Marc McClure Susan Kendall Newman Theresa Saldana Wendie Jo Sperber |
| Music by | The Beatles |
| Cinematography | Donald M. Morgan |
| Edited by | Frank Morriss |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.8 million |
| Box office | $1.9 million |
The film is about "Beatlemania" and is a fictionalized account of the day of the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (February 9, 1964). It was released in 1978 by Universal Pictures.
The film is the feature film directorial debut of Robert Zemeckis and also the first film that Steven Spielberg executive produced. Even though modestly budgeted, in order to convince Universal to bankroll it, Spielberg had to promise studio executives that, if Zemeckis was seen to be doing a markedly poor job, he would step in and direct the film himself.
Despite positive previews and critical response (The New York Times wrote that "the whole film sparkles with a boisterous lunacy" and called its plot "positively dazzling"), the film was not a financial success and was considered a flop, unable to recoup its rather modest $2.8 million budget. Zemeckis later said, "One of the great memories in my life is going to the preview. I didn't know what to expect the audience just went wild. They were laughing and cheering. It was just great. Then we learned a really sad lesson....just because a movie worked with a preview audience didn't mean anyone wanted to go see it."
Over a year later, in December 1979, four of the film's stars—Bobby DiCicco, Wendie Jo Sperber, Nancy Allen and Eddie Deezen—appeared in the Spielberg-directed comedy film 1941, which was also written by Gale and Zemeckis. Susan Kendall Newman, who played Janis Goldman, is the daughter of Paul Newman and Jackie Witte.
Screenplay
Ed Sullivan prepares the ushers for the Beatles' performance on his show. In Maplewood, New Jersey, Rosie and Pam visit the record shop. Janis, the owner’s daughter, hates the Beatles and prefers folk music. Grace wants to rent a limo so they can pull up to the Beatles hotel and get exclusive photos of the band. The girls recruit shy Larry DuBois, the local undertaker’s son, as he has access to limos. They leave for New York City and on the way are joined by the brash, streetwise Tony who professes to hate the Beatles, although for reasons different from Janis's.
After driving all night, the six teenagers arrive in Manhattan early in the morning of February 9, 1964. When they pull up at the hotel--which is surrounded by screaming teenagers--Grace, Rosie, and Pam sneak in while Larry pulls the limo with Tony and Janis in it to the side of the building. Once inside, Grace and Rosie sneak into a service elevator, while Pam is left in the basement in a storage closet. Pam (who was the only one not really interested in seeing the Beatles, as she is engaged to Eddie Lupus) sees them leave the hotel as they go to rehearse. Meanwhile, Grace gets off on the 11th floor.
Rosie rides up to the 12th, where the Beatles’ room is located. She is caught, escapes, and meets Richard Klaus, a fellow Beatles fan who is hiding out in a room in the hotel. Pam hides in a food cart and is taken to the Beatles’ room, where she, mesmerized, touches all of their stuff and, when the Beatles return to the room, hides under John’s bed. Grace is caught too, so she goes to the CBS studio, where a guard tells her that for 50 dollars he will let her in backstage while the show is on.
Grace and Larry try a quick money-making scheme with little success and a lot of danger. Meanwhile, Richard and Rosie are found out and tossed from the hotel. The two begin to quarrel and soon separate. In front of the hotel, Janis meets Peter, a kid whose dad will give him three tickets to The Ed Sullivan Show if he will get his Beatles style hair cut into a crew cut. Realizing that the Beatles themselves are providing the type of social cause that she believes in, she recruits Tony to steal the dad’s wallet and get the tickets. While Janis wants simply to help Peter see the show and be himself, Tony wants the ticket to somehow mess up the Beatles' TV appearance.
Larry asks Grace to the Valentine’s Day dance at school, but she brushes him off. Her mind on the photos, Grace decides to take the place of a prostitute who has an encounter at the hotel to get the money she needs. Rosie, on the way up to the room she has a key for, hears a question on the radio with tickets as the prize, so she runs into the room, calls with the answer, and wins two tickets. Richard then strands them in the elevator. Pam is caught, but treated with kindness by the Beatles' staff and interviewed by the press. Eddie, her fiancé, arrives to get her, but realizing that she has no interest in getting married, she leaves Eddie's car and runs toward the theater, where she uses the ticket Beatles roadie Neil Aspinall gave her to see the show.
Once in the john’s room, Grace can’t go through with it and hides, but takes photos of the john and the hooker and blackmails him into giving her 50 dollars. He attacks her, but Larry, who has been getting progressively drunker in the hotel bar, appears just in time to punch out the john and save Grace. Meanwhile, near the barber shop, where Peter and his dad are to meet, Tony lifts the dad’s wallet and eventually helps Peter and Janis get the tickets. Richard and Rosie escape from the elevator and get to the show, inadvertently meeting Pam in front of the theater. As the Beatles come onstage, Tony attempts to sabotage the show but fails.
Larry parks the limo in the alley behind the CBS studio and Grace goes to the back door of the theater. A policeman, however, pulls alongside Larry and prepares to arrest him for improper parking and driving without a license. Grace, running back to the car, uses the 50 dollars to bribe the cop into letting him go. Without money to get backstage and get her photos, Grace is temporarily disconsolate but soon offers to accompany Larry to the dance.
As the Beatles leave the theater following the TV show, they take a wrong turn and end up in Larry’s limo. As a crush of fans descends on the car, Larry drives the limo off with the Beatles in the back seat as Grace begins to snap photos.
- Nancy Allen as Pam Mitchell
- Bobby Di Cicco as Tony Smerko
- Marc McClure as Larry Dubois
- Susan Kendall Newman as Janis Goldman
- Theresa Saldana as Grace Corrigan
- Wendie Jo Sperber as Rosie Petrofsky
- Eddie Deezen as Richard "Ringo" Klaus
- Christian Juttner as Peter Plimpton
- Will Jordan as Ed Sullivan
- Read Morgan as Peter's Father
- Claude Earl Jones as Al
- James Houghton as Eddie
- James Hewitson as Neil
- Dick Miller as Sergeant Brenner
- Mary Hudson Girl in crowd
- Murray the K as Himself
- Leslie Hoffman stunt double for Wendie Jo Sperber
I Wanna Hold Your Hand holds a rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews. The consensus states: "Its slapstick humor and familiar plot don't break any new ground, but I Wanna Hold Your Hand succeeds at recapturing the excitement of a pivotal cultural moment."
The soundtrack features 17 original Beatles recordings:
The song "She Loves You" was featured twice toward the end of the film. The first time was during the group's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. For this sequence, stand-in Beatle lookalikes, dressed in identical attire and holding musical instruments in a similar manner, were seen mimicking the group's performance of the song from that show while being shown on the stage floor, albeit from a distance so as not to see their identities. The actual footage of the Beatles was revealed from the camera operator's point of view. These two elements were combined with reactions from the studio audience to recreate a historic moment in time. The second use of "She Loves You" came during the end credits.
Other songs by the Beatles, ones published years after their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, are referenced as in-jokes throughout the film. They are:
