Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / May 1, 1978, edition 1 / Page 12
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13 ..r r. . J v "t . V II . Ampersand V' fvCtJ. . f :., 't A oft J . kr: fJj. - . ti-f ' ... .. -4 : 1 try Pam Mill hell, agog over liealle hairs in I Wanna Hold Your Hand; crazed lieatle Jans (right). J", (Ml oc business," explains Barry. "The B.D. Brockhursts (the corrupt record company president who signs the LHCB in L.A.) come up all the time in this business. The good guys are a minority. It's too big of a business for them not to be. But, this is not an act ing film. It's a lot-of-fun rock musical." Four teenage girls, topped with bouffant hairstyles, crowd into a service elevator in the Beatles' hotel in New York City. The elevator door closes, then opens. On cue, one girl shrieks. Another screams. "It's a print!" Robert Zemeckis, 26, is directing and very much in control of his first feature-length film, based on a screenplay he wrote with friend Bob Gale. Watching the action of IVanna Hold Your Hand from the side of the set, Steven Spielberg's gaze is intense, but, at the same time, complacent. It was Spiel berg who convinced Universal Pictures to assign the project to Zemeckis. "My role as executive producer," he says, "initially was to reassure the studio that a first-time-out director, like Bob whom I had complete faith in could direct a major studio film, and I would be in the wings in case he was run over by a honey wagon. Which we knew would never happen," he chuck les. "I was like a kind of negative pick-up deal to insure Bob's ability, even though he's only had two USC shorts to his credit." Spielberg's track record includcdawj and Close Encounters Terea Saldana (lift, below) Wendiejo Sperber (center), and Mitchell stalk the Beatles. The Dee dees, Frampton, Donald I'leasance and Paul Xichnlas (far left); St. Pepper V $1 million Heartland set (near left). twwm , r, . ri .ijihmih 1 1? :s n-i nfi i i ; & - .J . Ml $ 5 yf j ' v . v Ms r t ' n mi ir li r riimniiiiii - I -iirimiiriiiii.iM ilm irinirrgM of the Third Kind; how could Uni versal doubt him? Where Sgt. Pepper's has a cast of stars, Wanna Hold Your Hand is full of unknowns. "It's like a family," says 27-year-old Nancy Allen, one of the film's six princi pal players. "It's not a very seri ous, uptight set, basically be cause we're all young." Set in February 1964 amidst the chaos surrounding the Bea tles' arrival in the United States, Wanna Hold Your Hand, budgeted at a modest $3 million, is the story of four teenage girls from Maplewood, New Jersey who make plans to travel to New York City, sneak into the Beatles hotel and, maybe, get into the Ed Sullivan Show to see the Beatles pcform live. Photographer Grace Corrigan (Teresa Saldana); Bealle fanatic Rosie Petrofsky (Wendie Jo Sperber); anti commercial activist Janis Goldman (Susan Kendall New man); and Pam Mitchell (Nancy Allen), who decides to make her last pre-marital fling with the Beatles, are joined by Larry DuBois (Marc McClure), the undertaker's son who "borrows" one of his father's limousines for the trip; and Tony Smerko (Bobby DiCiccio), who has the hots for Janis not the Beatles. Universal Studios' Stage 33 which for the purposes of this film is the Beatles' hotel is a flashback to the early Sixties, complete with Capri pants, rat ted hair decorated with bows, white lipstick, crewcuts (the most difficult to find for the casting di rector), and pointed shoes. Re laxing on a sofa in an alcove near the Beatles' bedroom, Wendiejo Sperber, who was only five years old in 1964, ponders: "I can't be lieve people really dressed like this." Wendie's 15-year-old Rosie character is the most ar dent of Beatle fans and is in love with Paul McCartney. In reality, only two of the cast's six leads are old enough to remember the clothes and effect of the Beatles. At home in Sher man Oaks, California, Susan Newman, daughter of Paul, re minisces, "I went to a lot of Beat le concerts. I stood in line and saw A Hard Day's Night 39 times. I knew every single line, the order of the songs and every song by heart. Yes," Susie sighs, "I was very much caught up in the Beatles." A reminder of days gone by, a personally auto graphed poster of the Beatles, hangs on her living room wall. "They were the stepping stone for me," she said, "from your basic kid into your basic adoles cent, and nothing else seemed to affect me as much as they did." Later Susan adds, "This isn't a profound film, but it does begin to deal with what people do with that whole concept of hero wor ship. And, let me tell you," she says, "when you get into that Hollywood Palace (which stands 4 i ' I I 1 A in for the Sullivan theatre in New York) and they turn on the tape and 'She Loves You' comes blar ing out over the loudspeakers and 400 extras are jumping on their feet screaming and crying, it does take you back." Twenty-year-old Marc McClure found himself somewhat amazed by it all: "It's a mad, mad world really." What makes Wanna Hold Your Hand that much different from A Hard Day's Night? "Richard Les ter's films about the Beatles are wonderful," says Spielberg, "but this picture is more about the so cial impact on six kids from New Jersey who come down to New Yok City for different reasons to be part of the mania. Why did she scream, hyperventilate and pass out? What was the magic? What was in the air that year that caused so many people to come unglued from themselves?" Within Spielberg's questions lie a certain validity for this film the attempt to give some respec tability to a hoard of screaming, crying, fainting girls, and perhaps even touch on the sociological whys and wherefores that caused the phenomenon. "I think the time is right for a Beatles movie," Spielberg says, "but you never really know until the audience tells you. There's enough time certainly between the Beatles' debut on (he Ed Sul livan Show and now 13 years is enough time between the two ex tremes. Besides," he chuckles, "nostalgia is the junk food of America." (
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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May 1, 1978, edition 1
12
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