Details About The Making Of 'A Hard Day's Night' That The Beatles Didn't Share For Years

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all the songs for the soundtrack, but it was Ringo Starr who came up with the film's title. Following an earlier gig that required them to play all day into the evening, the drummer looked out at the night sky and quipped that they'd had "a hard day...night."

Of course, after finding the perfect title, The Beatles had to write a song by that very name. John put together the basic tune one night before the group recorded it the next day. George Harrison, however, came up with the distinctive guitar chord that kicks off the classic son. Music theory experts debated what the cord was for decades before George finally revealed the truth in 2001.

If you're wondering how The Beatles' first movie came together so quickly after their Ed Sullivan debut, well, the truth is that it was a bit of a cash grab. United Artists merely wanted a hit soundtrack, regardless of how the film did with critics and the box office. That said executives did have some suggestions to make it more marketable — terrible suggestions.

Concerned that American audiences wouldn't be able to comprehend The Beatles' thick Liverpudlian accents, studio heads suggested the lads be dubbed with mid-Atlantic accents. The idea was shot down, but not before infuriating the band. McCartney snapped back, "Look, if we can understand a... cowboy talking Texan, they can understand us talking Liverpool."

Normally a goofball, Ringo got critical praise for his scene where he takes a lonely walk by the river. Starr eventually revealed that his subdued mood didn't come from any acting technique. In reality, he just was terribly hungover that morning.

Some real-life chaos ensued in the famous opening scene where fans chase The Beatles through the streets. George tripped and fell, tearing his suit in the process. The extra at the front of the pack then briefly stops everyone, giving time for Harrison to pick himself up, before resuming the pursuit. This shot made the final cut of the movie.

The Beatles managed to fit some risqué jokes into the movie. During a press conference scene, a reporter asks Lennon about his favorite hobbies. He, in turn, snatches her notepad, jots down something away from the camera, and hands it back to the woman, who looks shocked. Apparently, Lennon improvised by writing down a certain shocking term.

At the premiere of A Hard Day's Night, more than 200,000 cheered on the band as they took to the red carpet. Among these admirers were some literal royalty. Princess Margaret, along with her then-husband, the Earl of Snowden, greeted The Beatles prior to the screening.

The lads had fun making the film, but one day did prove stressful for Lennon. After wrapping, he headed with his bandmates to an arranged meeting with his estranged father, whom he hadn't seen in 17 years. John and Alf Lennon weren't able to spend 20 minutes together before the Beatle ordered his dad to be escorted off the set.

In the train scene, The Beatles attract the attention of some giggling girls. For one of these extras — an up-and-coming model named Pattie Boyd (left) — history soon proved that she was barely acting when it came to showing off her admiration for the Fab Four...

George, though known as the "Shy Beatle," couldn't help but hit it off with Pattie. They began dating during filming, and the couple got married in 1966. Pattie later left Harrison for his good friend and fellow rock god Eric Clapton in the 1970s, but that's a whole other story.

Paul's ornery Irish grandfather was played by Wilfrid Brambell, best known for the sitcom Steptoe and Son. The tagline for that show was "You dirty old man." A Hard Day's Night winked at that catchphrase by repeatedly referring to Brambell as a "clean" old man.

For the climactic concert sequence, The Beatles played a set in front of 350 real fans. Though he didn't appear in the final film, a young Phil Collins was among those lucky extras. As we all know, he'd go on to earn plenty of his own screaming fans.

While writing the script for A Hard Day's Night, Alun Owen spent a week with the band on the road. There, he developed their real personalities into film characters and observed their habits and manners. Their punishing schedule really wore Owen down, which inspired him to portray the band's fame as an annoyance — cue the mobs of running girls.

The Beatles did toy with Owen as he took notes on their slang. Off the top of their heads, they made up the word "grotty" as an abbreviation for "grotesque," and the term made it into the scene where George taunts the advertising executive. But the joke was on the band, as fans started using "grotty" after the film's debut.

Believe it or not, you won't hear any character utter the words "A Hard Day's Night" or even "The Beatles" in any line of dialogue. However, both phrases appear on various signs throughout the film's 87 minute runtime. In one musical number, the group also performs in front of photos of various beetles.

John Lennon had to promote his book In His Own Write one day during filming. So, for some shots in the scene where The Beatles ditch the studio and play in a sports field, Lennon's body double was none other than director Richard Lester! Though considerably balder than Lennon, he was able to pull it off thanks to the musician's leather cap.

George Martin — the ace music producer often called "The Fifth Beatle" — received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for the score of A Hard Day's Night. Strangely enough, however, The Beatles themselves weren't nominated for their own songwriting that inspired the score.

The set for the "Le Cercle" gambling den that sends the exclusive invitation to Ringo was featured in another classic film two years before A Hard Day's Night. That room was also where moviegoers first met Sean Connery's James Bond in Dr. No.

Running on a shoestring budget of $500,000, Richard Lester filmed in black-and-white as more of a money-saving move than an artistic one. But the filmmaker did imbue the movie with the camera stylings and editing of the French New Wave. That was a big reason why it was so unlike anything else mainstream audiences had seen.