Norm and Shake are loosely based on The Beatles real-life road managers Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans, respectively.
Once Ringo Starr's line "A Hard Day's Night" was confirmed as the movie's title, it was put to music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney with participation of George Harrison and Starr). The Beatles collectively composed the song that same night, playing it the next morning to producer Walter Shenson in their dressing room.
Premiered in England on the eve of Ringo Starr's 24th birthday.
Screenwriter Alun Owen claimed that the word "grotty" was a word used in Liverpool to mean "grotesque", but The Beatles never heard it before and believed Owen made it up. It subsequently passed into general usage and linguists certainly cite The Beatles as the popularizers of the word in the early 1960s and trace its origins to Liverpool.
Screenwriter Alun Owen claims that the only Beatle who ad-libbed was John Lennon. The truth is that all four members of The Beatles sparked each other's imagination and improvised.
Since The Beatles are credited in the opening set of credits, but are not in the more comprehensive end credits, they are listed first, followed by those in the end credits, as required by IMDb policy on cast ordering.
The camera's 360-degree pan around Paul McCartney during his performance of "And I Love Her" was achieved by dangling the camera from strings marionette-style and moving it in a circle around McCartney.
The constant mention of Paul McCartney's grandfather being "very clean" are references to actor Wilfrid Brambell playing a rag-and-bone man in Steptoe and Son, featuring the catch-phrase, "You dirty old man." "Steptoe and Son" was remade in the US as Sanford and Son.
The first movie ever put out on DVD, it was issued as a single disc. It was later reissued as a two-disc DVD.
The first of five theatrical movies that feature The Beatles.
The movie's working title initially was "The Beatles", then "Beatlemania", until Ringo Starr who was exhausted after a long day coined a phrase 'A Hard Day's Night', that was accepted by the studio.
The people chasing The Beatles into the train at the beginning of the film are real fans.
The resulting album of the same name is the only one The Beatles released with every song written and composed exclusively by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
The song "You Can't Do That" was cut from the concert scene at the end of the film, but the scene in which it is performed is still intact.
The song accompanying the boys' romp in the field was originally "I'll Cry Instead". It was changed to the previously-released track "Can't Buy Me Love" when director Richard Lester felt the first song didn't fit the mood properly.
The tire that Ringo Starr trips over in the scene at the river bank had to be thrown again and again, as it kept rolling incorrectly. Finally, after numerous wasted takes, it was offered to young actor David Janson, on hand to play the young boy Ringo meets. Janson rolled the tire correctly on the first try.
The woolly sweater worn by the TV director (Victor Spinetti) was his own. The sweater was given to him as a gift and later given to a fan club who had asked him for it.
The word "Beatles" is never mentioned in the movie.
There was a scene filmed, but cut, which featured Paul McCartney flirting and dancing with a ballerina preparing for her performance. It was cut to save time and because Paul already had his own plot line with his "grandfather".
This was The Beatles' first feature film and happens to be their only feature filmed in black & white.