I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) (2016 Reissue)   Starring: Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco and Marc McClure Distributor: Fabulous Films Ltd / Fremantle Media Enterprises RRP: £14.99 FHED3513 Certificate: 12 Release Date: 25 April 2016

1964 and the Beatles are heading for the USA. Pam Mitchell and her friends consider themselves as the ultimate fans and will do anything to break into their hotel to meet their heroes...

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978. 1 hr, 38 min, 31 sec) is a comedy film written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, co-written with Bob Gale.

The film tells the story of four young girls from New Jersey, Nancy Allen (Pam Mitchell), Wendy Jo Sperber (Rosie Petrofsky), Susan Kendall Newman (Janis Goldman), and Theresa Saldana (Grace Corrigan). Their great plan is to involve their friend Marc McClure (Larry Dubois) whose father owns a funeral parlour and therefore he has access to limos, something they will need to get near the hotel. Along the way they also pick up Bobby DiCicco (Tony Smerko) who is definably not a fan and would in fact like to sabotage the Fab Four's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Apart from the appearance of a young Nancy Allen and the comedy on speed action coming from Sperber there is not much to recommend the film. It shares a lot in common with 1941, which came out the following year; both feel like personal projects designed to amuse the makers.

In the commentary both Zemeckis and Gale reiterate just how funny the film is in reference to a lot of comics which, whilst famous, were not necessarily universally appreciated outside of America, like The Three Stooges, and Abbot and Costello. Few can deny their popularity at the time, but their form of comedy had faded even in 1978.

The acting isn’t bad and the use of only showing the Beatles from behind continues the illusion that you may be looking at the real band.

The disc only contains two extras, a full length commentary with writer/director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale. Their love of the film shines through as does their overall pleasure with the final cut, there are some interesting points about gorilla film making, but I’m afraid I cannot agree with them on how funny the film is. You also get a photo gallery.

Your audio options are a very decent English DD 5.1 or the original 2.0 mono track; there are subs for English, Spanish and French.

In the end we go back to humour being a personal choice, I never found The Three Stooges funny so I was never going to find the humour in this film, maybe you will?

6

Charles Packer