The review

They have a television appearance to make, a train to catch, and an afternoon in which the city wants pieces of them. The jokes are at the expense of managers, advertisers, and anyone who needs the boys to stand still and be a product. The songs are the work, performed as work. Nobody is asked to betray a friend. Nobody is asked to be cruel to a girl. For a phenomenon as large as this one, that is a remarkable restraint, and I will credit it.

A family can put it on. The limit is that it is a day, not a life, and a day of fame is a thin diet if it becomes the only picture of adulthood in the house. Watch the studio session and ask who in the room was doing a job seriously. Include them. The screaming outside is the decade. The work inside is the part worth keeping. A very large cultural fact of 1964. The fact is not a reason. The songs and the decency are.