Catch Us If You Can [Having a Wild Weekend] ** (1965, The Dave Clark Five, Barbara Ferris, David Lodge, Robin Bailey, Yootha Joyce) – Classic Movie Review 13,551  

Debut director John Boorman’s 1965 British musical comedy film Catch Us If You Can [Having a Wild Weekend] stars the rock band The Dave Clark Five, along with Barbara Ferris, David Lodge, Robin Bailey, Yootha Joyce, Clive Swift and Ronald Lacey.

John Boorman in his feature-film début gets to direct Sixties pop stars the Dave Clark Five in the 1965 British musical comedy film Catch Us If You Can, a Beatles-ish comedy in the wake of Help! and A Hard Day’s Night.

Alas the Five were less famous and talented than the Fab Four, though even so their popularity at the time still rivalled that of Beatles. But they were lucky to have Boorman, a tasty handful of British comedy stalwarts (David Lodge, Robin Bailey, Yootha Joyce), and a screenplay by talented playwright Peter Nichols about stuntmen involved with young model girl Dinah (Barbara Ferris) who elopes with Steve (Dave Clark), one of the stunt men.

Dinah, whose face appears on posters in an advertising campaign for meat (‘Meat for Go’), runs off with disillusioned Steve in an E-type Jaguar while shooting a TV commercial in London’s Smithfield Market. While they visit Oasis Swimming Pools, an open-air swimming pool in central London, and the Great Conservatory in the grounds of Syon House, the ad executives use their elopement to generate more publicity.

It’s a nice timewarp and, if you are a Sixties nostalgist, it’ll make you glad all over, with its pleasant high spirits and cheerful eagerness.

The film is named after their 1965 hit song song, written by the group’s drummer Dave Clark and guitarist Lenny Davidson.

Topping the bill are Dave Clark as The Dave Clark Five: Steve, Lenny Davidson as The Dave Clark Five: Lenny, Rick Huxley as The Dave Clark Five: Rick, Mike Smith as The Dave Clark Five: Mike, and Denis Payton as The Dave Clark Five: Denis.

In January 1964, they had their first UK top-ten single, ‘Glad All Over’, which knocked the Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ off the top of the UK Singles Chart.

Also in the cast are Clive Swift, Ronald Lacey, Hugh Walters, Michael Gwynn, Marianne Stone, Donald Morley, Michael Blakemore, Julian Holloway, Peter Nichols, Robert Lang, Susan Hanson, Sheila Fearn, Alan Lake, and Peter Eyre.

It was released in the US as Having a Wild Weekend.

Barbara Ferris (27 July 1939 – 23 May 2025)

Barbara Ferris’s films include Term of Trial (1962), A Pair of Briefs (1962), Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963), A Place to Go (1963), Bitter Harvest (1963), Children of the Damned (1964), The System (1964), Catch Us If You Can (1965), Interlude (1968), A Nice Girl Like Me (1969), A Chorus of Disapproval (1988), and The Krays (1990), her final film role.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,551

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