Marylebone Station, the A Hard Day's Night Opening Scene Location

The opening chase of A Hard Day's Night was filmed at Marylebone station on Melcombe Place in London, not in Liverpool. The Beatles shot there on two Sundays, 5 and 12 April 1964, when the station was closed to passengers. The station is still in daily use, the old entrance canopy survives, and there is no plaque for the film.

Two Sundays in April 1964

Marylebone was closed to the public on Sundays, which let Richard Lester's crew film there without passengers. The first day of filming, 5 April 1964, used more than a hundred fans to chase John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr through the station and onto the train. The Daily Mirror reported the shoot the next morning. On 12 April the crew came back to film in the empty station. The film opened in July 1964 with Gilbert Taylor as cinematographer.

In the story the band are leaving Liverpool, so Marylebone stands in for a Liverpool station at the start. It also plays the London arrival at the end of the journey, filmed from a different angle. The rest of the rail journey was filmed in the West Country, at Minehead, Taunton, Crowcombe and Newton Abbot.

Where each shot was taken

The shot of the band running at the camera with fans behind them looks north along Boston Place, with the station on the left of the frame. Taylor used a long lens, so the street's real length is hard to judge.

Lennon, Harrison and Starr then run in through the old entrance, under the ironwork canopy designed by Henry William Braddock. The canopy is still there, but it is no longer the main way into the station. Inside, they duck into telephone booths to hide. Those booths are gone, and a small supermarket fills the space.

Paul McCartney and the actor Wilfrid Brambell were filmed on platform 1. At the end of the journey the band walk out into Melcombe Place towards a waiting car.

The station today

Marylebone opened to passengers in March 1899 and still runs trains every day. The BFI's 2024 then-and-now survey noted that the concourse has been opened out and that cars no longer drive onto the platforms, though the platforms stay busy. Nothing in the station refers to the film. Two Beatles plaques are within a kilometre, at the Apple Boutique site on Baker Street and 34 Montagu Square.