(Credits: Far Out / The Bootleg Beatles)
Before Back to the Future, there was I Wanna Hold Your Hand for Robert Zemeckis. Pre-Marty McFly, Delorean and all things 1985, Zemeckis wanted a story focusing on the biggest rock and roll band in history, and that’s what he made. Written alongside Bob Gale and produced partly by Steven Spielberg, I Wanna Hold Your Hand basically followed six teenagers from New Jersey as they fight to see The Beatles at their first US show – without tickets.
It’s a premise that is tantalising. A cultural phenomenon coupled with a coming-of-age road story that operates essentially as a rom-com and is set to some of the best music ever made should be an absolute winner. However, Zemeckis failed to deliver on almost all counts.
For all its flaws, I Wanna Hold Your Hand speaks of a generational mania that’s often spoken about with rose-tinted glasses. The film really is a bit of fun, and actually still makes sense in the era of superfans for the likes of Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, it’s just definitely a 1970s film – although it’s set in 1964. It’s also pretty funny to see a Beatles story told from an American point of view, given our particular British perspective on the situation, plus, there is some pleasure to be had from the outdated-ness of it all.
In any jukebox musical or film about a real band, there’s a certain amount of copyright law that will be banded around, and with I Wanna Hold Your Hand coming into fruition in 1978, you can imagine the chaos surrounding rights to Beatles material. In addition, Zemeckis and the production crew obviously wanted to use concert footage of The Beatles to bolster the film, which came with its own set of issues.
With this in mind, Zemeckis and Gale spoke to Rolling Stone about the experience and how they managed to get around the red tape. Zemeckis said: “That’s an interesting story. So we were told by the Universal folks that, apparently, we would have no problem getting the actual Sullivan footage — CBS told the studio, ‘Yeah, sure, you can use the footage. It will cost you X amount of money. But you have to get permission from the Beatles and indemnify us from any legal action they might take against us.’”
It was not the words Zemeckis wanted to hear. “Well, immediately, Universal’s legal team is like, “No way, you can’t use any footage. We are talking about the Beatles. We would get sued by people who have enough money to win”.” Imagine being sued by The Beatles… scary stuff.
Gale added: “We actually had lawyers tell us, “If you make the movie, you can’t show the Beatles at all — no likenesses, stock footage, anything.” We had to show them storyboards for how we were going to not show the Beatles. They’re lawyers — they don’t have imaginations.
“All they know is there’s a girl in the Beatles’ hotel room, and in the script it says you only see their legs. But they don’t know how to read a script. They don’t get it.” So it turns out, it’s pretty hard to make a Beatles film without The Beatles.
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