Richard Lester at ninety
No matter how many years have passed since they first hit American airwaves, or how many of its members have died, or how aged its surviving members have become, the Beatles will always be, in our minds, forever young. To a large extent, the public perception of John, Paul, George and Ringo as personifications of youth, zest and zeal was a byproduct of their classic faux-documentary musical comedy, A Hard Day’s Night, released in the summer of 1964, just months after their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. It comes, then, as something of a shock to note the ninetieth birthday this month of the film’s prodigious and gifted director, Richard Lester. The maker of the Beatles movies (he also directed 1965’s Help!) a nonagenarian? It can’t be! But so it is.
