(Credits: Far Out / MGM)
Sat 23 August 2025 17:45, UK
Growing up during the years of One Direction Infection and Bieber Fever, I’ve always wondered if certain older people met the mop-topped Fab Four and the sexually-charged energy of the Stones with a similar disdain.
Sure, the music is incredibly different (One Direction never exactly broke new musical ground), but the mania these artists inspired is all pretty comparable. If the internet had been available to the screaming hordes who chased the Beatles down every street they entered, then you could bet there would be more fan accounts for the Liverpudlians than One Direction had fans.
There has always been a captivated audience whenever a set of young men with stylish clothes, distinctive haircuts and guitars in hand get up on stage. From Elvis Presley to Justin Bieber, quiff to offensive swoop, musicians have a habit of causing mania. The Beatles, too, induced a kind of hysteria with their haircuts. Though it might not have been a part of their initial master plan, there can be no doubt that their haircuts helped to cement their position in the cultural landscape.
Music got louder, heavier, dirtier, more experimental. Clothes got more colourful, daring, and playful. The Beatles led this revolution to an audience of adoring fans who took everything they said as gospel, although it wasn’t long before another British band began vying for the title of the swinging sixties’ ultimate musical and fashion icons. The Rolling Stones certainly had the looks, the songs, and the sexual sway over many fans, but it was the Beatles who reigned supreme in the grand scheme of things.
Still, that’s not to diminish the Stones’ presence as one of the decade’s most important artists. They brought a slightly naughtier edge to rock and roll compared to the Beatles, and while many young people fell head first into this frenzy-inducing world of guitars and sexual revolution, not everyone could say they felt the same.
Frank Sinatra had crooned his way to superstardom before the ‘60s had even begun, having successfully carved out an acting career for himself on the side. He wasn’t exactly the epitome of cool, but he had the pipes and the power to make himself a beloved star nonetheless. Yet, there came a time when Sinatra’s exasperation with this new musical and cultural order came to bite him on the behind, and he soon let his annoyance with this symbol of youthful rebellion affect his own work.
Employed as the lead actor in The Naked Runner, directed by Sidney J Furie, he was required to come to England to film the espionage flick. The star made his way to the land of double decker buses and Beatlemania, only to leave as quickly as he could say, “Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away.”
According to the book Mr S: My Life with Frank Sinatra by George Jacobs and William Stadiem, the film turned out to be a “major debacle.” The atmosphere of swinging London couldn’t have been more detestable to Sinatra, who wasn’t about to stick around and have to put up with young people knocking about with big mustaches and unwashed hair.
“Mr S hated London, where the film was set, for being taken over by the Beatles and the Stones, and hated the swinging, Carnaby Street Mod atmosphere so much that he basically dumped the picture, went back to L.A., and let the producers worry about putting together what footage they had. It had to be one of his worst films,” the book explains.
The Naked Runner is better forgotten; it’s not a film Sinatra was ever desperate to look back on fondly. He can hardly blame the Beatles and the Stones for the failure of the movie, though; it was his stubborn temper that seemed to do the trick.
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