Cast:
Dave Clark (Steve), Barbara Ferris (Dinah), David Lodge (Louis), Robin Bailey (Guy), Yootha Joyce (Nan), David de Keyser (Zissell), Clive Swift (Duffle), Ronald Lacey (Yeano), Hugh Walters (Grey), Michael Gwynn (Hardingford), with Lenny Davidson (Lenny), Rick Huxley (Rick), Mike Smith (Mike, and Denis Payton (Denis) Directed by John Boorman (#565 - Zardoz, #975 - Deliverance, #1210 - Excalibur, #1915 - Exorcist II: The Heretic, #2224 - Point Blank)
Review:
The 1960s had plenty of room for rock and roll bands to get their shot, so of course here is a movie coming off the heels of the "British Invasion". The Dave Clark Five actually started as a backing musician group in 1958 before becoming their own real band in 1962 in London that had each member play varying instruments (Clark for example, played drums while also being the manager and song co-writer while the vocals were done by Mike Smith). The band had a handful of songs that made the charts, most notably with "Glad All Over", and they were the second group to go on the Ed Sullivan Show after the Beatles had done so in early 1964 (apparently, one band manager of the time argued that the early success of the Clark Five was actually a rival to the Beatles). The band disbanded in 1970, but Clark kept on with another self-titled band for a few more years. Apparently, the impetus for the movie that became known as "Catch Us If You Can" in some markets and "Having a Wild Weekend" in places such as America was because Nat Cohen had missed out on producing A Hard Day's Night. He found a producer with David Deutsch to helm the movie. The movie was written by playwright Peter Nichols, who apparently did it in need of money. The result of a script that Nichols labeled a "pretentious odyssey about middle-aged entrepreneurs exploiting young talent, crammed with irony, philosophic overtones and three-syllable words" was filmed with apparently few of his words actually filmed, probably because of having to work with actors that weren't particularly experienced. The director would be John Boorman, a clerical instructor in the British Army-turned-journalist-turned-newsroom man-turned-documentary filmmaker. Catch Us If You Can wasn't a major success, but Boorman followed it up with 1967's Point Blank (as co-written by Alexander Jacobs, who was an assistant to Deutsch on the aforementioned Catch movie) and 1968's Hell in the Pacific.
I do wish I liked the movie, but for whatever reason, my memory of the film started to diminish in what I actually liked about it the more it stuck around in my brain. Being sandwiched between band-related ventures such as A Hard Day's Night [1964] and Head [1968] (speaking of movies featuring groups with curious observations about people that are far better than Catch Us If You Can) probably does not help matters. It isn't so much that the movie isn't a subdued mess, it just so happens the movie is a puddle of ideas that only come across in vague terms that aren't helped with the lack of one commanding performance. You have Clark and Ferris going around in episodic adventures encountering varying levels of weird people (read: British) that is sometimes curious but not nearly as interesting as it believes itself to be. Ferris had a handful of roles in her career, mostly in the 1960s, and she does relatively fine in hurried timing, as one does when the camera (read: Boorman focusing on the actor) likes to focus on her worries in the prism of youth. It might be taken as being a commentary of fame and the culture of the time that mostly involves a bunch of weird people, I suppose. It just doesn't feel incisive enough to really make any interesting observations beneath the obvious that is pretty hollow (oh don't go with "but that's the point", even movies that like to talk about hollow people at least have venom) and it barely feels enthusiastic enough to make one inquire further of the Clark Five (get it, they play stuntmen in the film rather than musicians). It just comes and goes with the vibes of someone trying to make the best of muddy thoughts that is too elusive to actually hold on to. At least it looks nice and has a few "heh" gags, at least, mostly in strange timing and the ending is at least elusive enough to invite curiosity, but it just never feels like a complete experience. As a whole, it might be more of a curiosity for the road later travelled with Boorman than as some sort of great experience, which is both a blessing and curse for those who like to check out movies now celebrating sixty years.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
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