Hard Day's Night and Summertime

 It's funny watching something iconic like the Beatles and "A Hard Day's Night." It has aged well and kind of fascinatingly. There are the expected Beatles silly pins and humor, and running away from screaming fans. But there are interestingly naturalistic elements too. Ringo runs away from the band to see wild oats and ends up making a mess of some funny old English pub games, then hanging out with kids playing hooky. It's charming without being cutesy. When it finally morphs into a concert film, the stage is strikingly simple, no elaborate sets or pyrotechnics.

A non-cutesy kid also is a major player in "Summertime," with middle-aged Katherine Hepburn bringing tons of nuance to her performance as an Ohio spinster letting loose on a trip to Venice. She has a fond but arch relationship with the kid, a barefoot, cigarette-smoking Italian street urchin, who ties a lot of plot elements together. Not that it's a very "plotty" movie - it gently sends up American tourists without being cruel, the characters are broad but not caricatures - more like pencil sketches limned by a talented artist. David Lean's vision of Venice is beautiful but realistic. The camera lingers on little details like cats sleeping in the sun and overcrowded canals. It feels like going there and it's a real pleasure. 

Also, it nails the Bechdel test decades before that was a thing, and in just a normal, real way. (You can tell when, for example, a superhero movie shoehorns in a weird conversation between two women in the cast for this purpose!) I don't think the Bechdel test is a needed element like that - it's more of a litmus test for how women are considered in a movie. They are treated well in "Summertime" because they are allowed to be real people. Katherine Hepburn truly was magnificent.