
The band play cards and entertain some schoolgirls before arriving at the London station, where they are quickly driven to a hotel and begin to feel confined. En route, they meet Paul McCartney's trouble-making grandfather for the first time. The Beatles evade a horde of fans while boarding a train for London to film a televised concert. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the 88th greatest British film of the 20th century. The film is credited as being one of the most influential of all musical films, inspiring numerous spy films, the Monkees' television show and pop music videos, and various other low-budget musical film vehicles starring British pop groups, such as the Gerry and the Pacemakers film Ferry Cross the Mersey and John Boorman's vehicle for The Dave Clark Five, Catch Us If You Can. In 1997, British critic Leslie Halliwell described it as a "comic fantasia with music an enormous commercial success with the director trying every cinematic gag in the book" and awarded it a full four stars. Forty years after its release, Time magazine rated it as one of the 100 all-time great films. The film was a financial and critical success and was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. The film portrays 36 hours in the lives of the group as they prepare for a television performance. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists. A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 musical comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring the English rock band the Beatles- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr-during the height of Beatlemania.
