CATCH US IF YOU CAN
UK, 1965, 91 minutes, Black and white.
Dave Clark, Barbara Ferris, Lennie Davidson, Rick Uxley, Mike Smith, Dennis West Payton, Clive Swift, Robin Bailey, Yootha Joyce, David de Keyser, Michael Blakemore.
Directed by John Boorman.
Catch Us If You Can was released the same year as Richard Lester’s The Knack and the time of the Beatles’ films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help which this film in some ways resembles. The Dave Clark Five were popular at the time – though far less popular than the all-pervading Beatles.
This is a film of swinging London in the 1960s, television, commercials, the advertising industry and its exploitation of its stars. Barbara Ferris (who substituted for Marianne Faithful) is a model who runs away from a shoot with a stuntman (played by Dave Clark, the leader of the Dave Clark Five). Their journey throughout England provides copy for the advertising agency who exploits them.
The screenplay was written by Peter Nichols (Georgy Girl, A Day in the Life of Joe Egg, Privates on Parade). It was one of the earliest films of the celebrated director John Boorman who gave it quite some style. Boorman was soon to make Point Blank as well as a number of international films including Deliverance. He continued his career over the next forty years.
1. The impact of the film and its value in its time? Reflecting the mid-sixties and the trends of film making, popular cult culture, youth oriented films? Its impact now?
2. How valuable as a document of the times? A picture of pop culture?
3. How interesting and attractive the group? Interest in them as persons, their music, the film as a show piece for the Dave Clark Five?
4. The films presentation of their music, its use as background?
5. The importance of the individual style of the film, angle photography, editing, sense of motion etc?
6. The plot and its plausibility? The plot as a hanger for the film’s style, presentation of the characters, the comment on be times? The continuity of the plot?
7. The satire on the TV world, the making of commercials, the people involved, their manner of speaking? How effective the satire?
8. The heroine as attractive? Her role in the TV world? Running away for the day, her friendship with the boys? Yet her eye on a commercial career? Her being left at the end? The ethos and the irony of this?
9. The atmosphere of getting away, of not being bound, the difficulties of getting away because of contracts, people’s personalities and dominance? The visualising of the getting away, the various places they went, the holiday atmosphere, yet its ultimate futility? It was impossible to get away? People did actually get caught?
10. The significance of the army sequence, in itself, the comment on militarism, its impact on the characters?
11. The satire on the presentation of the middle aged couple? Their marriage, their attitudes towards the young people, their tendency to exploit? The nature of the satire?
12. The criticism of the media, the m anovaering of publicity, the e41oiting of people, especially by the kidnapping?
13. The significance of the party? The filming and its style? The bizarre kind of parody?
14. The ending - Lou as bad as all the others? The transition from naivety to cynicism? Comment on the film in terms of the medium is the message.
