A Hard Day’s Night confirmation
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| A Hard Day’s Night |
While we were in New York, word got out that a freshly restored version of the Beatles’ first motion picture “A Hard Day’s Night” will premiere at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood 10-14. April. After this, it is expected to be released as a DVD and a Blu-ray. We’ve mentioned it before, and there’s still no official word from Apple Corps Ltd, but independent British distributors Second Sight Films have confirmed that they are working on a Blu-ray release, according to Blu-ray.com. According to a tweet from Giles Martin which we have mentioned earlier, he seems to have been involved in some capacity, and no doubt that will be in the sonic department. We also hear that long time film and audio restoration expert Ron Furmanek is involved.
Related to this, a BBC TV-show “The One Show” is making a documentary about “A Hard Day’s Night”. They have been looking for extras from the original film, and are soon set to be shooting some new scenes at Marylebone Station, where the opening sequences of “A Hard Day’s Night” were filmed. This of course, parallells the Arena TV-special that was shown during the promotion of the restored Magical Mystery Tour. So, still no word about any home video release date, but the world premiere of A Hard Days Night was July 6th, 1964, so perhaps they are timing it to that particular 50th anniversary?
Interesting…does that mean Criterion Collection won't be involved? That would be disappointing since they usually release definitive versions. Also I hope Giles Martin IS involved, and based on that tweet it sure looks that way, but could he also be working on the long rumored Beatles film clip set?
My guess is there may be a joint release, where Criterion will handle the US market and Second Site Films in the UK. Giles Martin is confirmed to have been involved in making a true 5.1 surround sound version of the soundtrack, as opposed to the faux-from-mono 5.1 audio on the Miramax release. See today's post for more details about the upcoming release.
Putting my bets on a Criterion release. In their New Year's teaser drawing for this year's releases, they drew in four beetles: facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153738908850565&set=a.267108010564.311536.24856820564&type=1&theater
Also check out the description on the TCM page ( filmfestival.tcm.com/programs/films/a-hard-days-night/): "world premiere restoration from the original negative and presented in collaboration with Janus films".
Janus films is very closely tied with Criterion. Most Criterion releases I've watched come from them! They are the best folks to handle a release properly. 🙂