A Hard Day's Night - The Fab Four from Liverpool--John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr--in their first movie. Nobody expected A Hard Day's Night to be much more than a quick exploitation of a passing musical fad, but when the film opened it immediately seduced the world--even the stuffiest critics fell over themselves in praise (highbrow Dwight Macdonald called it "not only a gay, spontaneous, inventive comedy but it is also as good cinema as I have seen for a long time"). Wisely, screenwriter Alun Owen based his script on the Beatles' actual celebrity at the time, catching them in the delirious early rush of Beatlemania: eluding rampaging fans, killing time on trains and in hotels, appearing on a TV broadcast. American director Richard Lester, influenced by the freestyle French New Wave and British Goon Show humor, whips up a delightfully upbeat circus of perpetual motion. From the opening scene of the mop tops rushing through a train station mobbed by fans, the movie rarely stops for air. Some of the songs are straightforwardly presented, but others ("Can't Buy Me Love," set to the foursome gamboling around an empty field) soar with ingenuity. Above all, the Beatles express their irresistible personalities: droll, deadpan, infectiously cheeky. Better examples of pure cinematic joy are few and far between.  Buy Now!

  Help! - After the worldwide success of A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles and director Richard Lester reunited for a follow-up film, Eight Arms to Hold You. Well, that wasn't the final title; a pleading Lennon-McCartney tune provided the catchier handle: Help! A loose semispoof of the globe-trotting James Bond pictures, Help! has always been considered a somewhat disorganized comedown from its predecessor; but it presents "the famous Beatles" even more clearly as the English cousins of the Marx Brothers. The plot has an Eastern religious cult declaring that the new ring on Ringo's finger is the key element in a human sacrifice; they will stop at nothing to obtain it. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (crazed Victor Spinetti, who also appeared in A Hard Day's Night and Magical Mystery Tour) believes that if he has the ring, he could--dare we say it?--rule the world. The songs, including "Ticket to Ride" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," are filmed with gleeful ingenuity, in locations such as the Bahamas, an Austrian ski resort, and the Salisbury Plain. The relentless nonsense becomes nearly the equivalent of a swinging-'60s Alice in Wonderland: for instance, Paul shrinks to the size of a gum wrapper, John fishes a season ticket out of his soup, George wears a top hat on the ski slopes, the lads sing the "Ode to Joy" to a lion. Oh, and the film is dedicated to Elias Howe, "who in 1846 invented the sewing machine." Brilliant. Buy Now!

  Magical Mystery Tour - Magical Mystery Tour is a superb, mostly surrealistic film produced by The Beatles. Magical Mystery Tour employs all sorts of technological tricks, fantasy and reality to produce an appealing motion picture that you won't forget anytime soon--it's THAT good. The DVD is a print copied from film taken several decades ago, so prepare yourself for a DVD experience that's not exactly digital. The film works well anyway.  Buy Now!

  Yellow Submarine - The scope of Yellow Submarine's 1999 restoration is idealized on the DVD version, which beyond its slightly letterboxed original aspect adds a stunning 5.1 sound mix that showcases the audio team's wizardry; music fans can hear the entire score without dialogue, the better to focus on such revelations as "Nowhere Man," boasting a gorgeous, full-stereo chorus, and "Only a Northern Song," with a first-time-ever stereo mix that exploits the full surround array for appropriately mind-blowing effect. Other special features include three storyboarded sequences, two of which are not seen in the final film; behind-the-scenes photos and featurette; a full-length audio commentary; and the original theatrical trailer.  
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