Main Cast: Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson, Barbara Ferris, Rick Huxley, David Lodge, Robin Bailey, Mike Smith, Yootha Joyce, Denis Payton
Release Year: 1965
Country: UK
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
At one time, The Dave Clark Five were considered the Beatles' key rivals in international pop stardom, and so, when the Fab Four made a smash at the box office with A Hard Day's Night, Mr. Clark and his partners followed with Catch Us If You Can (also known as Having A Wild Weekend). Dinah (Barbara Ferris) is a famous model and actress who is getting tired of life in the limelight and wants to take a break. While shooting a commercial spot for meat, she meets Steve (Dave Clark), a stuntman. Dinah and Steve hit it off and decide to head to an island to get away from it all (bringing along four of Steve's friends, Mike Smith, Lenny Davidson, Denis West Payton, and Rick Huxley, who -- surprise! -- play music with him). Before long, Dinah is reported missing and everyone is looking for her, making their getaway anything but tranquil. While A Hard Day's Night launched director Richard Lester into international success, Catch Us If You Can was the feature debut for John Boorman, who similarly went on to bigger and better projects. Songs featured include "I Can't Stand It," "Catch Us If You Can," and "Having A Wild Weekend." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Catch Us If You Can (better known in the USA as Having A Wild Weekend) is a better film than it seemingly has a right to be. Produced by Nat Cohen under the aegis of Anglo-Amalgamated Pictures, it was intended to exploit the fame of the Dave Clark Five who, at that time, were the second biggest selling British rock 'n' roll act after the Beatles, who had enjoyed such an unexpected hit with Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night the previous year. And for all that the intended audience could have cared, Dave Clark and company could have just stood their miming their songs for an hour and it would have made a fortune. But screenwriter Peter Nichols (whose other credits include Georgy Girl and A Day In The Death of Joe Egg) delivered a much more serious script than anything than Lester or the Beatles ever thought of working with, and director John Boorman rose to the occasion. Catch Us If You Can does have some of the happy-go-lucky scenes one would expect of a juke-box movie of this era, and captures the mood of Swinging London before it became a tourist attraction (and could still be captured adequately and acceptably in black-and-white, courtesy of cinematographer Manny Wynne, whose other credits include The Luck Of Ginger Coffey and Smashing Time); but it also has a dark, serious edge amid its satire of the advertising and media industries, and the romantic flight of the two mismatched lovers (Dave Clark, Barbara Ferris); and a sinister side to several of the supporting characters, which left audiences at the time wondering precisely what it was that they'd seen. The ominous presence of water images, especially, anticipates some of Boorman's better-known later work (in Deliverance, particularly), whilst the bleak landscapes that Clark and Ferris's characters cross calls to mind the contemporary work of transplanted American stlyist Joseph Losey. The movie was probably too serious for most Dave Clark Five fans, assuming they even noticed the plot or images (and several of the songs -- especially the title track -- were excellent) amid the sight gags and frantic pacing of Gordon Pilkington's editing. But it's because of those very same dark tones that the movie retains its fascination 40+ years later, an attribute shared by precious few films in this genre. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
David de Keyser - Zissell; Robert Lang - Whiting; Clive Swift - Duffle; Ronald Lacey - Beatnik; Hugh Walters - Grey; Michael Gwynn - Hardingford; Marianne Stone - Mrs. Stone; Donald Morley - Barker; Michael Blakemore - Officer; Julian Holloway - Assistant Director; The Dave Clark Five; Peter Eyre - Art Director; Anthony Gardner - Director; Alan Lake - Cameraman; John Jones - Drinker; Sheila Fearn - Shirley; Susan Hanson - Laraine; Peter Nichols - Photographer
Credit
Sally Jacobs - Costume Designer, John Boorman - Director, Gordon Pilkington - Editor, Dave Clark - Composer (Music Score), Dave Clark - Musical Direction/Supervision, Lenny Davidson - Songwriter, Dave Clark - Songwriter, Denis Payton - Songwriter, Mike Smith - Songwriter, Tony Woollard - Production Designer, Manny Wynn - Cinematographer, David Deutsch - Producer, Peter Nichols - Screenwriter
