On this day in 1964, The Beatles began work on their first film

As the bands popularity surged and Beatlemania took hold, a film was planned to capitalise on the hype and grow their audience. A Hard Day’s Night was scheduled for release in July, giving the crew a timeline of around 16 weeks and a budget of £189,000 to make the movie.

The plot of the musical comedy featured an exaggerated portrayal of the bands lives for the 36 hours in the lead up to a television performance. Filming began with a scene on the train from Paddington Station to Minehead, England and back. During this scene George Harrison met a young actress named Pattie Boyd, who he married the following year. A young Phil Collins also made an uncredited appearance in the film as an extra during a concert scene.

The film performed as well as expected, with thousands of fans rushing to the cinema for the film, and  to the record store afterwards to buy the soundtrack album, which earned a record at the London Pavilion by grossing over $20,000 in its first week. Reviews of the film were mostly positive, and critics have later said the film likely inspired a number of the popular British films and television of the later 1960s.