Les Ambassadeurs, London
A return to Les Ambassadeurs, shooting the film's discotheque sequence in the club's Garrison Room the Beatles dancing to "I Wanna Be Your Man" and "Don't Bother Me". Suddenly, their biggest American champion, Ed Sullivan flew to England on Wednesday, April 15th, ready to interview the Beatles on location the next day. But Thursday, had seen the group frantically busy by their own high standards, so Sullivan's appointment was re-scheduled for today.
For all of his traveling and waiting, one wonders if Ed could have been happy with the result. The interview, conducted in the club's walled-garden, was extremely brief, 1 minute, 34 seconds, for insertion into the Sunday, May 24th edition of the "Ed Sullivan Show" (transmitted by the CBS network, 8:00-9:00, EST). A bonus, however, came in the form of a clip from A Hard Day's Night, supplied to Sullivan by United Artists to accompany the interview: it was a section from the Scala Theatre "Live Performance" filming on March 31st, the group miming to "You Can't Do That". When final editing was taking place this sequence was cut from the film, so - although he couldn't have known it at the time, six weeeks before the film's world premier - Sullivan's US broadcast had the footage exclusively.
The complete Beatles Chronicle, -Mark Lewisohn
