Having a Wild Weekend

Having a Wild Weekend (aka Catch Us if You Can)(John Boorman, 1965) If you're old enough to remember "The British Invasion" back in the 1960's, you might remember the name of "The Dave Clark Five", one of the British pop bands that was dominating American air-waves and record charts after the barrier had been broken by The Beatles. The Beatles caused a sensation, making their American TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show for three weeks in a row, but my memory remembers The DC5 being the group that appeared on Ed's variety show in the weeks following The Beatles' American tour...before The Animals and before The Rolling Stones.

 

They were a great group, with a tougher, fuller sound than their contemporaries, with great "hooks" that had an ability to become ear-worms instantly, even though their lyrics had little depth. But, you didn't care—they were free-wheeling, rocking musicians with throat-bleeding lead vocals by the inimitable Mike Smith.

 

And if you weren't a "rebel" group (like the Animals or the Stones), but pop, there was the standard foray into other entertainment forms, following the shimmying footsteps of Elvis—Herman's Hermits made films and Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddie and the Dreamers and Cliff Richard* and on and on. The Dave Clark Five made one, too, but it wasn't a hit, barely featured the DC5, but can boast it was the first feature directed by British director John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory).

Unlike in The Beatles films, The DC5 don't play themselves—indeed, they don't even "perform" any of their songs, but a couple of tunes are used as background for edited hi-jinks—they're stuntmen/extras who are being used in an ad campaign for a British meat-packing plant, the most prominent of the commercials and billboards featuring Dinah (Barbara Ferris) "The Butcher Girl" extolling the virtues of meat to the British public. That an ad agency would use a swinging Blond "bird" as their symbol for meat is an absurd concept (but one that isn't inconceivable in the advertising world) and Boorman has a fine time larking about London showing more and more of the incongruous campaign, which, evidently, is doing the job as the city seems festooned with billboards.

The plot starts when, on a commercial-shoot with Dinah and the boys, Steve (Dave Clark) strikes up a conversation with her and discovers that 1) she's bought her own private island in Devon and 2) she's bored and tired with her life. He could tell her that she is fundamentally well-off that she can afford to be bored and actually does have some agency and maybe she should sleep on it and give it 24 hours. Then, there wouldn't be a movie. But, no. He steals the ad agency's Jaguar and the two go off to find her island. Because that's what young, energetic, swinging 60's kids do, dad! And ad agency exec's—who are paying for studio-time—then send the police and whatever goon-squad they can find to bring them back.

Which is just what Dinah's ad-agency pygmalion, Zissell (David de Keyser) does. Hi-jinks and low social comedy ensue, cutting a swath through a limited number of 60's outliers like vagabond-Brit-hippies and upper-class eccentrics, where if a point was being made it's a bit hard to discern. The trip to the island doesn't prove pointless, but it does have a bit of a let-down in store ("It smells of dead holidays, doesn't it?"). Not the kind of "gas" they were expecting.

But, another way that Having a Wild Weekend separates itself from the usual pop-film fluff (aside from only leaving the band-mates as cyphers and concentrating on Clark's character—he was, after all, the group's manager and impresario) is decidedly down-beat ending, where all the gadabouting and free-thinking comes to naught when confronted by economic reality, power dynamics and the superficial benefits of fame. Hardly the message of peace, love, and understanding associated with the 1960's or rock n' roll. That could be why the film didn't do so well. But it did give Boorman enough attention to get his next gig directing Point Blank, a genre-piece with its own subversive take on noir, business, and corruptibility.

"Tried it once. Didn't fancy it."

 

* I remember, as a kid, having to suffer through Richard's film Summer Holiday, the first film of the double bill, at the Seattle premier of A Hard Day's Night. I have a vague memory of it as being insufferable and more amused at the Beatles-starved audience being impatient with it. Summer Holiday was directed by another up-and-coming director, Peter Yates. It was a hit in Britain, though, earning the position of the 2nd most popular film of 1963, right behind From Russia With Love.