Review of I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) by Stuart K — 25 Apr 2009

Robert Zemeckis made his directorial debut with this film, produced by Steven Spielberg. A cheap and cheerful loveletter to the craze of Beatlemania that hit America in 1964. It's an underrated and slightly obscure little comedy which deserves a little more recognition.

It follows a day in the life of a few High School teenagers from Maplewood, New Jersey, as The Beatles prepare to make their American TV debut on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York. The teenagers are Pam Mitchell (Nancy Allen) who is soon to be married, but wants to bed one of the guys before she does.

Then there's Rosie Petrofsky (Wendie Jo Sperber), a very huge fan who gets involved with another huge Beatles fan Richard 'Ringo' Klaus (Eddie Deezen), and there's Grace Corrigan (Theresa Saldana), who wants to get some photos of the boys.

They travel from New Jersey to New York, and then into the Plaza Hotel, where the Beatles are staying at. It's a very gentle but fun comedy which sums up the craziness that was going on at this time, it does decend into slapstick farce alot of the time, but it's got a bubbly innocence in it's blood.