Author: DOuG pRATt

A Hard Disc’s Night

There is supposed to be yet another video release coming of the Beatles movie, A Hard Day’s Night. That’s good, because the DVD is excessively cropped for widescreen format, it pushes the contrast too hard and, for the songs, the sound is terrible compared to the 1987 release on the defunct LaserDisc format. Here’s the comparison.

Prue Bury with Pattie Boyd on the AHDN LD…
[media id=63 width=512 height=408]

…and on the Miramax AHDN DVD.
[media id=64 width=512 height=312]

Here’s something you may not know. The scene in the baggage car wasn’t filmed on the train. Prue Bury told me…

All the singing on the train was shot in the studio,with someone shaking a carriage about!!

According to Mark Lewisohn in “The Complete Beatles Chronicles”…

Wednesday, March 11, 1964:

On this day, working from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm, the group filmed on a set resembling a train guard’s van, where they played cards and also mimed to ‘I Should Have Known Better’, later edited into the film’s train sequences.

Here is “I Should Have Known Better” as presented on LD…
[media id=65 width=512 height=408]

… and on DVD.
[media id=66 width=512 height=312]

Addendum: It seems the “new” AHDN DVD is only on Blu-Ray, and only in Canada, and it’s the same questionable video transfer from the Miramax DVD. But the sound is supposedly greatly improved.

http://www.beatlesnews.com/blog/the-beatles/200909070938/a-hard-days-night-to-be-released-on-bluray-dvd.html

I suppose the best all-around video version of “A Hard Day’s Night” is the original DVD release, which explains why it’s going for a premium on Amazon Marketplace.

http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Hard-Days-Night/dp/B000LCF3HM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1254061928&sr=8-4

“I know it’s America here… I’ve noticed.”

The Beatles flood continues. In a perfect world, when the Beatles arrived in the United States for the first time they would have been followed by a film crew. What’s that? They were?? Incredible!

[MEDIA=62]

There’s a lot more footage available on YouTube, but here are ten interesting minutes I’ve edited, starting with their arrival on Friday, and ending when they left the Plaza Hotel suite on Sunday for CBS studios, and their famous appearance on Ed Sullivan’s variety show.

  • At the airport press conference John says “we need money first” before they can sing. Later, Paul and Ringo seem to have no recollection of John’s quip.
  • The reporters took the Beatles as a joke. It seems silly now that their hair was such a big deal.
  • The boys appeared excited seeing themselves on TV.
  • Walter Cronkite can be heard closing his CBS broadcast with news of the Beatles’ visit. Cronkite was one of the first American newscasters to feature the Beatles in 1963.
  • The boys seemed genuinely tired from jet lag, discussing the time difference and the prospect of going out later. A hard day’s night.
  • John really was very cutting when he felt he was suffering fools. Murray “the K” Kaufman, with his toupee, had no idea that “wacker” meant “a stupid person.”
  • “Cyn” is, of course, John’s wife Cynthia. She’s told to watch Channel 2 at 8.
  • John plays around with a mouth organ. Three years later, the tune would become the opening to “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
  • Love the Pepsi transistor radios.

Nursing a grudge

A hospital night nurse in Chicago, cuffed by a cop in the ER and detained in the back of his cruiser for 45 minutes.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/nurse.arrest.lawsuit.2.1197786.html

Why? Because she insisted on following standard procedure. Now she’s suing the police department, and I’m sure the officer who grabbed her will insist that standard procedure be followed, before any disciplinary action is taken.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/SEP/NurseArrest.flv 500 300]

More evil than Communism?

I’ve already said something about Michael Moore’s latest outraged assertion, that Capitalism is evil. One bit of confusion that many people, including George Bush, seem to have, is equating Capitalism with Democracy. China is proof that the former does not imply the latter.

The shout-downs against health care regulation at the so-called town hall meetings reminded me of Moore’s ambush tactics, except a lot less clever than driving an armored car to AIG and demanding the bailout money be given back to the American taxpayers. Moore was on The Colbert Report last night. Regardless of his politics, the man simply has to drop a hundred pounds.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Capitalism’s Enemy – Michael Moore
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

John, Paul, George, Ringo, Peter, Paul, Mary… and Ed

My sister Jean pointed out a photograph I didn’t recall seeing before, of Peter, Paul, and (the recently departed) Mary with the Beatles. The date was April 17, 1964, and the place was a posh club in London called Les Ambassadeurs, where some scenes in “A Hard Day’s Night” were filmed.

It must have been a brief meeting, because the shooting schedule was so hectic that even Ed Sullivan was given the bum’s rush. An interview in the club’s garden that he filmed for his variety show lasted only a minute and a half. But for his trouble Sullivan was sent an exclusive preview clip of the movie, that didn’t make the final cut, of the Beatles performing “You Can’t Do That.” I posted it over a year ago, at this link.

Classical oldies in Boston

For all of my emphasis on Pop music, half of my CD collection is Classical. A few years ago, Boston’s commercial radio station with Classical music, WCRB, switched frequencies to a weaker signal to make way for a Country music station. Today there’s the news that the other Boston radio station with Classical music, non-commercial WGBH, is buying WCRB.

I don’t know what to make of this move. There’s no obvious logic behind it, except perhaps a strategy to consolidate Classical music on Boston’s airwaves to ensure its survival. It’s estimated that a successful Classical CD sells only about 5,000 copies. (The same is supposedly true of Blues and Jazz recordings.)

WGBH, which is one of the country’s premiere PBS TV stations, has been mismanaged for some years. It built an obnoxiously luxurious new studio with an ill-advised, and unreliable, giant TV that faces the Mass Pike. And now the overhead of financing and operating the new facility is dragging down WGBH. The radio station is the much smaller part of the organization, and it’s always had a mixed format that switches to Jazz in the evening, through the night.

If ‘GBH uses ‘CRB as its Classical music outlet, I’m not sure what it can do with its frequency, other than to try to expand its news offerings. But another public radio station, WBUR, which itself was mismanaged in the past, already has that covered.

With the underground station WBCN now gone, Boston radio is really in turmoil. Through all of this, the only station that I listen regularly, that keeps on keeping on, is WBZ-AM. And earlier this year ‘BZ made the huge mistake of letting go of overnight talk show host Steve LeVeille, then having to reverse that decision thanks to listener outrage.