I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) on Netflix
PG19781h 44mComedyMusicRomance
Four teenagers from Maplewood, New Jersey drive to New York City to reach the hotel where the Beatles are staying on the day of their Ed Sullivan debut. Grace wants exclusive photographs.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.9/106,355 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
It is February 1964, and Beatlemania has taken hold of New York City, where the Beatles are about to make their American television debut on Ed Sullivan's show. In nearby Maplewood, New Jersey, Grace Corrigan wants exclusive photographs of the band to launch a career in photojournalism, so she proposes that she and her friends Rosie Petrofsky and Pam Mitchell get into the Beatles' hotel. Pam agrees even though she had planned to elope with Eddie Lupus, her boyfriend, on the night of the broadcast. Janis Goldman, who disapproves of the Beatles, comes along, as do Tony Smerko, who dislikes them too, and Larry Dubois, whose father has access to the limousine they need. On the morning of the show the friends reach the hotel, where crowds of screaming fans are already gathered.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To get Universal to finance the low-budget film, Steven Spielberg promised studio executives that if first-time director Robert Zemeckis appeared to be doing a poor job, he would take over and direct it himself.
- Studio executive Ned Tanen reacted aggressively when Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis pitched him the script, accusing them of attempting to produce an antisemitic work; the pair later named Back to the Future's villain Biff Tannen after him.
- Because the Beatles could not be shown, stand-in lookalikes in identical attire mimed the band's Ed Sullivan performance from a distance, while footage of the real Beatles was revealed from the camera operator's point of view and cut together with studio audience reactions.
