Catch Us If You Can

Catch Us If You Can (1965) (released with the title Having a Wild Weekend in the U.S.) was the feature-film debut of director John Boorman. Ostensibly designed as a vehicle for pop band The Dave Clark Five, whose popularity at the time rivaled that of The Beatles, and named after their hit song "Catch Us If You Can", this strangely downbeat film actually departs in various ways from the formula created by Richard Lester in A Hard Day's Night, and... more

Catch Us If You Can (1965) (released with the title Having a Wild Weekend in the U.S.) was the feature-film debut of director John Boorman. Ostensibly designed as a vehicle for pop band The Dave Clark Five, whose popularity at the time rivaled that of The Beatles, and named after their hit song "Catch Us If You Can", this strangely downbeat film actually departs in various ways from the formula created by Richard Lester in A Hard Day's Night, and by Sidney J. Furie and Peter Yates with the Cliff Richard films. Although they perform the off-screen soundtrack music, The Dave Clark Five (unlike The Beatles) do not play themselves, but appear to be a team of freelance stuntmen/extras, led by the saturnine Steve (Dave Clark). Clark had worked as a stuntman on a number of films, providing him with experience and camera-sense that the The Beatles would have lacked in A Hard Day's Night. Far from being a conventional pop vehicle, this serious, thought-provoking film concerns itself with the... less