"In retrospect, this is the most important
counterculture film of the sixties"  --London Guardian

    

director: John Boorman
starring: Dave Clark · Barbara Ferris · Mike Smith · Robin Bailey · David de Keyser · Rick Huxley

     

Despite the obvious pop-culture context, this film is NOT a summer beach-party musical romp. Even though other British bands (including the Beatles) were producing essentially theatrical-sized music videos with no significance beyond brazen promotion, that wasn't the case here. In fact, everything about this film breaks preconceived notions about pop-music films.

First, even though it features the Dave Clark 5 (a major pop band of the mid '60s, and the only real threat to the Beatles' domination of the marketplace before the arrival of the Rolling Stones) in the headline position, they do not play themselves. Rather, they play stuntmen working for Action Enterprises Ltd. That means the members of this mega-popular rockband never actually perform on screen. In fact, after the first ten minutes, the DC5 virtually disappear from sight - popping up only occasionally - while sullen-faced Dave Clark becomes the film's the main focus.

Secondly, while virtually every other pop-music movie has capitalized on summer holidays and fun-in-the-sun, this one is shot entirely in the dead of British winter, thus exaggerating inherent bleakness, meshing both gray urban existence and the barren rural landscape into a cynical apprehension.

      

The film is the brainchild of John Boorman, a young television documentarian who would later direct such legendary movies as DELIVERANCE and EXCALIBUR. Here is the story of stunt man Steve and actress Dinah who are completely fed up with the advertising business. During the filming of the latest "Meat For Go" TV commercial, they decide to escape. Steve and Dinah are already in a Jaguar Sportscar for the shoot, so they decide to "borrow" the car and embark on a freewheeling journey. When Dinah tells Steve of a deserted island off the coast she's thinking about buying, he vows to take her there. The movie is their journey through various escape routes which turn out to be dead ends.

A recent article in the London Guardian said: "In retrospect, this is the most important counterculture film of the sixties."  Certainly, all the elements are here. The influence of New Wave cinema abounds, the frustration voiced by the youth movement is evident in most every frame, and seldom has a motion picture captured such grim expressionistic desolation without becoming preachy.