The beginning of this movie reminded me of the train scenes in A Hard Days Night. They weren't exactly the same, but had the same comic flavor. Additionally, Willfred Brimley had the same look as Arthue Askey. Any one else notice the connection?
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I disagree. I thought the train sequence WAS exactly the same, and I doubt it's purely coincidence. The Beatles worked with Arthur Askey on a BBC radio show about a year before their first feature film. They, and anyone who lived in Great Briton, would have been very familiar with Askey and his "goon" style of British Music Hall (Vaudeville) antics. The director of AHDN, Richard Lester, had a successful TV show called "The Goons", featuring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, which was the same type of fast-paced absurdity (a predecessor of Monty Python's Flying Circus and Benny Hill). I'm guessing Lester wanted to recreate the Askey version of the train sequence for The Beatles, using another very popular British TV star at the time (Brambell).
shareThere are a few errors there, Cinerama. The first one is a touch pedantic but by "Great Briton" you clearly mean "Great Britain". The second is perhaps more a matter of opinion but I would hardly class Arthur Askey's style of humour "goon". He was very funny but I don't recall him ever going in for the surrealistic or zaniness which Bentine, Milligan,Secombe and Sellers exemplified.
As for "The Goons"......It was actually called "The Goon Show" (original title "Crazy People") and was very much a radio rather than a TV show. Richard Lester was never involved in it though he did attempt a transfer to TV with "The Idiot Weekly" in 1956 with only limited success and he later worked with some Goon members on feature films.