American teenagers as a culture force came into their own in
the 1950s, and as always, the white/middle-aged forces in control were
instantly threatened, trying to demonize kids with the over-stated “juvenile
delinquency” scare of that decade. However, the combined power of Elvis
Presley, James Dean, and the Crypt Keeper could not equal what happened to
teens in 1964. They screamed like they were being murdered. They peed their
pants. They threw themselves in front of and out of moving vehicles. They lost
complete and total control. This crazed behavior was a consequence of three of
the things the older generation most feared: sex, Rock & Roll, and
foreigners. Those foreigners in question were four youngsters from Liverpool,
England, and though The Beatles projected a seemingly wholesome image,
teenagers correctly interpreted the licentious messages of Rock & Roll like
“Please Please Me”, “Twist and Shout”, and even “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. Consequently,
they went cuckoo.
Footage of the shrieking crowds at early Beatles concerts is
sufficient evidence of this moment in history when millions of teenagers
practically lost their minds, but it does little to convey who these shrieking
whackos were. 14 years after The Beatles’ invasion, writer/director Robert Zemeckis
tried to get into the minds of Beatlemaniacs with his debut film. I Wanna Hold Your Hand portrays Beatlemania
as a sort of infectious disease from which no young person is immune. Not every
one of the film’s characters starts off as a Beatles fan, but they almost all
end up as one, no matter if they prefer Joan Baez and social consciousness or
are more concerned about their impending nuptials than some silly pop band from
England. They all end up screaming with the crowd, or in the case of soon-to-be-married
Pam, making out with Paul’s bass after sneaking into his hotel room.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
is slight, but it remains good fun and is fairly pioneering as what may be the
first film about fandom. The cast, which includes such always welcome faces as
Nancy Allen as Pam, future Bosom Buddies
star Wendie Jo Sperber, Marc “Jimmy Olson” McClure, Teresa Saldana, and Dick
Miller, is a hoot. Plus, the movie is loaded with original Beatles recordings,
which makes it highly unique among movies that aren’t Beatles documentaries.
Because it is neither a very sophisticated film nor a
full-on cult movie, I Wanna Hold Your
Hand is a slightly odd choice for the Criterion Collection, but not an
unwelcome one. However, the picture is somewhat less sharp and detailed than
Criterion’s usual work. Extras are nice though, with a friendly conversation
about the film’s genesis and production between Zemeckis (they discuss clearing
the rights for all those fab Beatles tunes and a very funny story about using
footage of them at the end of the picture), co-screenwriter Bob Gale, and
producer Steven Spielberg, an informative interview with stars Nancy Allen and
Marc McClure, and two of Zemeckis’s student films that don’t provide much
evidence that he’d one day churn out blockbusters but display a more anti-establishment bent that conservative stuff like Back to the Future and Forrest Gump would. The feature commentary with
Zemeckis and Gale has also been ported over from Universal’s 2004 DVD.
