The excellent 1960s pop group the Dave Clark Five will be featured tonight on Turner Classic Movies in a festival of films featuring 1960s music acts with special appeal to the youths of that time.
The films in the overnight “British Invasion” marathon include Richard Lester’s classic Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, two amusingly odd movies featuring Herman’s Hermits, and Having a Wild Weekend (UK title: Catch Us If You Can), in which the Dave Clark Five star as a team of movie stuntmen.
The latter film is a very interesting pop-culture artifact, as it was directed by John Boorman (Deliverance, Point Blank, Excalibur, Hope and Glory) and included a realistic depiction of the “hippie” movement and its attitudes. It is not a frothy vehicle for the pop group but instead a thoughtful film that successfully explores and conveys many of the anxieties of the young generation that arose in the 1960s.
The Dave Clark Five also make a cameo appearance, as do The Animals, in the comedy Get Yourself a College Girl, which is also part of the overnight marathon.
Here is the “British Invasion” film festival lineup:
Monday, June 2:
8:00 PM
Hard Day’s Night, A (1964)
9:45 PM
Go Go Mania (1965)
11:15 PM
Having A Wild Weekend (1965)
1:00 AM
Hold On! (1966)
2:45 AM
Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter (1968)
4:30 AM
Get Yourself A College Girl (1964)
(Thanks to reader Tom Van Dyke for the movie listing.)
Tom, these are excellent points. The notion of the DC5 as a Rosetta Stone for cultural historians is quite interesting and spot-on, and the point about HWW’s similarities to Easy Rider is fascinating and true. If you feel like writing up further thoughts on that point, I’d be happy to publish such an article here.
I’m honored, S.T. But that was a rare inspired outburst from me. I hate entertainment.
About all I know about it these days is what you write about it. You’re my last lifeline to culture. I’m counting on you!
You made me a Dave Clark 5 fan, Sam. For that I’ll always be in your debt.
It took me & Mrs. TVD a few days to get around to watching “Having a Wild Weekend” nee “Catch Me if You Can.” Our thoughts {mostly hers}:
As it was released in 1965, the first thing that jumped out at us was how we heard/saw echoes of it in so many pop culture prods that followed, from “O Lucky Man!” to the Monkees TV show. Although in today’s America the DC5–let alone this film–are long-forgotten, it’s reasonable to assume that every tastemaker of the mid-1960s on either side of the Atlantic saw it and made it a touchstone of their cultural vocabulary.
The DC5 are a Rosetta Stone for the cultural historian. Musically, their 4 and 5 part “barbershop” harmonies are quite 1950’s or early ’60s ala The Lettermen; their arrangements more oriented toward rhythm and power ala James Brown more than baroque sophistication [compare to The Beatles].
As for the film, “Having a Wild Weekend” has far more in common with “Easy Rider” which would come after than any Elvis movie that came before! Unsurprising, though, if you watch
http://www.stkarnick.com/blog/post/pbs-great-peformances-profiles-the-dave-clark-five
Dave Clark, the drummer and band business genius, worked as an extra in 40 films [iirc] before “Having a Wild Weekend,” directed a film special on the DC5, got his telegenic self into drama school under an assumed name after he broke up the band in 1970, and ended up writing and staging a multi-million dollar [£] London East End musical starring Freddie Mercury and Sir Larry Olivier as a sort of Brando-like Jor-El.
To us 21st centurians, the Dave Clark Five represent an alternate universe. Nay: A parallel universe, but one just as real as the one think we know that’s populated only with Beatles and Stones.