On July 6, the Beatles are back in England and join Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon, and the Rolling Stones for the premiere of A Hard Day’s Night at the London Pavilion. The movie opens to fantastic reviews—and record profits. The studio makes $5.8 million in six weeks against a $500,000 expenditure; the film later earns two 1965 Academy Award nominations, for best original screenplay and best music (for George Martin’s score, not the Beatles’ songs).

The film holds up as both a promotional piece and a legitimate work of art—a surrealist mock documentary–slash–Marx Brothers film that showcases the Liverpudlian musicians’ charisma and wit.

“No attempt has been made,” Variety writes, “to build the Beatles up as Oliviers; they are at their best when the pic has a misleading air of off-the-cuff spontaneity.”

But how do they rate back home in Liverpool, where John and the others have heard that the local fans have soured on the Beatles? The Cavern, where they haven’t performed since August of 1963, has reportedly written them off. “That’s Liddypool for you,” grouses Paul.

In the four days between the London and Liverpool film premieres, near terror sets in. Fans, John says, “only like people when they’re on the way up.” Friends of the band “kept coming down to London,” Ringo recalls, “saying, ‘You’re finished in Liverpool.’”

Yet lining the familiar streets surrounding the Odeon Cinema at home are fans, thousands and thousands of them, hoping to catch a glimpse of the four young men whose home-grown brand of fame and music are still very much celebrated.

John declares A Hard Day’s Night “not as good as James Bond,” though with the London premiere of Goldfinger due in September, he stands an even chance with Sean Connery for delivering on the third Bond film’s tagline: “Everything he touches turns to excitement!”

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

We can climb so high

I never want to die.

—“Born to Be Wild”

That August, the Beatles head back to America. They perform twenty-six shows across the United States and Canada.

The tour is intense.

Insane.

The fans are obsessed. Girls like fifteen-year-old Sandi Stewart do anything they can to sneak into hotels to meet the Beatles. Reflecting back, Sandi said of her favorite Beatle, John, “He seemed so intelligent and witty. His body was very sexy. He became the one I loved passionately,” she says. “When absolutely nothing else in my life was good, I’d go to my room and have the Beatles, especially my darling John. They all furnished something I desperately needed.”

“George is the handsomest and he’s loving it all,” states Maureen Cleave (again on tour with the band for London’s Evening Standard) in a piece for the San Francisco Examiner headlined HOW THE FRENZIED, FURRY BEATLES TOOK OVER ENGLAND. An American fan swoons, “George has got sexy eyelashes. He’s got sexy eyelashes!”