MovieChat Forums > A Hard Day's Night (1964) Discussion > Can't Buy Me Love

Can't Buy Me Love

posted 9 years ago by rikkirat
8 replies | jump to latest

I'm a huge Beatles fan and I've seen AHDN dozens of times over the years...but as I watched it the other day I noticed that the song Can't Buy Me Love was performed twice in the movie - once when they 'escaped from the theater' and a second time when John, Paul and George went to rescue Ringo from the police station and they were being chased by the Bobbies. While I can see the theme being performed twice beginning and end... I just thought it was curious they repeated a song within the movie itself. By the time AHDN was released didn't the Beatles already have a pretty decent body of work to draw on and could have included another song instead of repeating one? Just thought it was curious...

[–] Prismark10 9 years ago

Maybe the second time it was just a filler!

Its that man again!!

[–] rstabosz-1 9 years ago

Good catch! According to the imdb trivia section for AHDN, the scene of the escape from the studio that morphs into them playing on the field was originally set to "I'll Cry Instead." But when the director saw the scene he thought the song didn't fit the mood of the scene, and used "Can't Buy Me Love" instead.

I'm guessing this substitution was made late in the editing stage, when the other scene was already set .

[–] johnston.scot 9 years ago

Perhaps a factor:

One of the prime reasons United Artists made the movie was to be able to release a soundtrack album. EMI (and hence Capitol) had the right to release albums in the US, but apparently there was a hole in their contract, in that it didn't cover soundtrack albums.

So UA wanted a whole album's worth of songs that hadn't already been on a Capitol album, to release as a soundtrack record. As it turned out, they had to fill the album a bit with instrumentals.

They also had a deal to split the publishing, which may explain (at least in part) why it was the first Beatles album with all original material (and the only one that was all Lennon and McCartney).

[–] janet-conant 9 years ago

They needed a fast tune like Can't Buy Me Love to go with the fast action of the fun in the "private" field and the chase to find Ringo.

[–] beatlenut8 9 years ago

They could have used Any Time At All as it was an up tempo and part of the album. Maybe it wasn't ready in time for the final cut

[–] Dominik528 7 years ago

I agree. I listened to the album after seeing the movie, and I think "Any Time at All" would've been a much better fit for the police scene - it shows how much the band cares for Ringo. :)

[–] ATG6 (3000) 3 years ago

Yeah, the movie could have used a few more rockin' numbers, and they had some in their catalog, even at that point. But I guess they wanted only the new stuff for the new album due to contract issues.

[–] greenbudgie (2355) a year ago

They may have noted that a number of classic musicals repeated songs. Sometimes more than twice. And also they may have found that 'Can't Buy Me Love' went particularly well with the sequences where the Beatles were running through the streets etc.