PASCACK VALLEY—Sixty years ago this week, The Beatles “mockumentary” “A Hard Day’s Night” debuted in the United States. The film would later be named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest films of all time.
Released at the height of Beatlemania, it opened in America on Aug. 11, 1964. The movie chronicles a “typical” day in the life of the Fab Four as they try to make it to a gig on time, despite numerous comedic setbacks.
Certainly the Pascack Valley was not immune to Beatlemania, as these two classic images show. Here, a Beatles tribute band—taking artistic license with the addition of a saxophone and accordion—plays atop the marquee at Westwood’s Pascack Theatre on Center Avenue.
The appearance coincided with the theater’s debut of “A Hard Day’s Night.” Accounts from those who were at the film’s opening describe absolute pandemonium and exhilarated screams that drowned out parts of the movie.
The Westwood News reported after the event, “Beatlemania strikes Westwood! Hundreds of youngsters lined Center Avenue as the Pascack Theatre had a showing of the new movie starring The Beatles. So many customers showed up before the theater opened Westwood police were called to maintain order.”
Do you remember the two storefronts on either side of the theater? On the left was the Pascack Beauty Salon, and on the right, behind the girls, was the photography studio R.J. Mason. A sign in R.J. Mason’s window reads, “Pascack Valley Tercentenary Queens” above photos of young ladies. That was New Jersey’s tercentenary year—the 300th anniversary of the state’s founding as an English colony.