While I was away…

I should take more time off from the blog. October has been the third busiest month this year for hits!

While I was away, to my utter amazement, lo and behold, those kooky ladies from Belgium, K3, finally went to #1 on the blog hit list! I suppose that must be due to the interest in the new girl, who was introduced at a live show in Holland a few weeks ago. Her name is Josje, which begs the question, how can they still call the group K3?

http://youtu.be/Rr96GO8ncvg

(BTW… Karen Damen is pregnant.)

A Hair Day’s Night

In this video, hair dresser Betty Glasow talks about working on “A Hard Day’s Night.” Note: it starts with a clip that includes Jimmy Nichol, the temporary touring drummer who filled in for Ringo, while he was having his tonsils taken out.

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These pictures show Betty setting the hair of beauteous Prue Bury. (Prue’s name is pronounced like “blueberry.”)

Betty Glasow setting Prue Bury\'s hair

Betty Glasow setting Prue Bury\'s hair

The next picture is a truly delightful one of Prudence, taken before filming started of the scene with her and Pattie Boyd. Click to see a 1024×768 scan.

Pattie Boyd, Prue Bury, John Lennon
© Astrid Kirschherr

See how Prue still has the clips in her hair? The newspaper next to Prue says “the Beatles” and if you look at the paper John Lennon is holding it says, “she’s with it! she’s got it!” That is so perfect. Prue is still very with it and she’s definitely still got it. I’m fairly sure that Ringo was sitting across from John.

And this is Betty Glasow getting Prue’s hair camera-ready for that day’s filming.

Betty Glasow and Prue Bury

Betty Glasow and Prue Bury

The finished product.

AHDN

AHDN

By the way, Prue’s regular hair stylist was Vidal Sassoon. Not one of his people, but Sassoon himself.

‘A Hard Day’s Night’ on CD-ROM

Way back in January 1994, I ordered my first “serious” desktop computer. It was MS-DOS 5 with Windows 3.1, on a 40 MHz AMD processor with 4 MB of memory, a 160 MB drive, generic Tseng ET4000 video card, and a 14″ SVGA CRT. I installed a Soundblaster 16 card with a proprietary SCSI interface for a Panasonic CD-ROM drive that used caddies.

One of the first CD-ROM’s I had (which, come to think of it, might have been a gift from Denro), was “The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, the complete uncut movie”. It was put out by the Voyager Company, known for its high quality Criterion label of LaserDisc videos. My LD copies of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “HELP!” are both from Criterion.

I was thrilled with this new technology! I could actually watch the movie on my computer, albeit in extremely compromised quality, with the script automatically following along. Here are some sample screens.

A Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROMA Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROM

A Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROMA Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROM

A Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROMA Hard Day\'s Night CD-ROM

Enlarged, the screen caps show the actual video image size. I’ve scaled up one of the MOV files from the CD to 320×240. It runs at a measly 16 fps, but this was hot stuff in 1993, with online streaming video still a long way off. Note that even here, in this limited presentation, “I Should Have Known Better” sounds better than on the Miramax DVD!

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