Best Music Movies of 1964

Capturing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their electrifying element, 'A Hard Day's Night' is a wildly irreverent journey through this pastiche of a day in the life of The Beatles during 1964. The band have to use all their guile and wit to avoid the pursuing fans and press to reach their scheduled television performance, in spite of Paul's troublemaking grandfather and Ringo's arrest.

Hailed by one music reviewer as "the grooviest, wildest, slickest hit ever to pound the screen," "The T.A.M.I. Show" is an unrelenting rock spectacular starring some of the greatest pop performers of the 60s. These top recording idols - representing the musical moods of London, Liverpool, Hollywood and Detroit - packed the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with 2,600 screaming fans and virtually brought down the house. This is the cinematic record of that electrifying event.

In prohibition-era Chicago, the corrupt sheriff and Guy Gisborne, a south-side racketeer, knock off the boss Big Jim. Everyone falls in line behind Guy except Robbo, who controls the north side. Although he's out-gunned, Robbo wants to keep his own territory. A pool-playing dude from Indiana and the director of a boys' orphanage join forces with Robbo; and, when he gives some money to the orphanage, he becomes the toast of the town as a hood like Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Guy schemes to get rid of Robbo, and Big Jim's heretofore unknown daughter Marian appears and goes from man to man trying to find an ally in her quest to run the whole show. Can Robbo hold things together?

Lucky Jackson arrives in town with his car literally in tow ready for the first Las Vegas Grand Prix - once he has the money to buy an engine. He gets the cash easily enough but mislays it when the pretty swimming pool manageress takes his mind off things. It seems he will lose both race and girl, problems made more difficult by rivalry from Elmo Mancini, fellow racer and womaniser.

The buoyant Molly Brown has survived the first crisis of her life—a flood. Sixteen years later she sets out to make her way in the world. She assures the Leadville saloon keeper that she can sing and play the piano, and learns quickly. Soon she marries Johnny Brown, who in a few years will be able to replace the original cigar wrapper wedding ring with a replica in gold and gemstones. The Browns head for Europe and bring a few crowned heads back to Denver for a party that turns into a ballroom brawl. Molly goes to Europe alone, returning on the Titanic. She didn't survive a flood as a baby for the story to end here.

Neighboring widowers plot to romantically unite their son and daughter by pretending to feud and forbidding the two children to associate with each other. Their scheme works and the two youngsters fall head-over-heels in love. To end their "feud" the fathers hire a bandit and his henchmen to fake an abduction and allow the son to rout the assailants. The plan works, but the two love birds discover that requited love is much less exciting than forbidden romance and they break off their relationship. Matt, the son, resolves to see the world and receives a severe buffeting, while Luisa, the daughter, has an unhappy romance with the bandit, who steals her most precious possession, her mother's necklace. Matt returns, sadder but wiser, and the two former lovers reunite.

A private investigator endures the rigors of an insane asylum in order to locate $1 million in stolen loot.

An account of John, Paul, George and Ringo's first week in America. The Maysles follow the Fab Four for five days, from crazed airport reception to press conferences to backstage at the Ed Sullivan Show to hotel-room hanging out to their horrified encounter with the legendary deejay Murray the K to their equally frenzied homecoming.

A millionaire sets out to prove his theory that his pet chimpanzee is as intelligent as the teenagers who hang out on the local beach, where he is intending to build a retirement home.