Catch Us If You Can is a 1965 British musical dramedy film starring the British Invasion group The Dave Clark Five, written by Peter Nichols and directed by John Boorman as his feature debut.
Steve (Dave Clark) and his roommates (Denis Payton, Mike Smith, Rick Huxley, and Lenny Davidson) work as stuntmen in London. While filming a commercial for meat, Steve absconds on a whim with model Dinah (Barbara Ferris), and the two travel towards Burgh Island, which Dinah is thinking about buying.
Unrelated to Catch Me If You Can, despite that movie also being set in The '60s.
Catch Us If You Can contains examples of:
- Abandoned Area: While traveling along a country road, Steve and Dinah stop by at a caved-in building, which is the temporary home of a group of hippies. They all have to flee a few minutes later, because the building turns out to be on government territory, and the area is being used for a military exercise.
- Awful Wedded Life: Steve and Dinah stay with wealthy couple Guy (Robin Bailey) and Nan (Yootha Joyce), who seem to get into regular shouting matches. Nan makes fun of everything about Guy, from his collections to his taste in marmalade, and doesn't mind insulting him in front of guests.
- Idle Rich: When Dinah asks Guy what he does, he answers, "Do? We don't do anything." He devotes his free time to collecting old things, like phonograph cylinders, posters, and especially family photographs.
- Market-Based Title: It was released in the United States as Having a Wild Weekend.
- Mustache Vandalism: A montage early in the movie shows the many Meat for Go ads around London. On one of them, someone has drawn glasses and a beard, which a worker has to clean off. After Steve and Dinah take off, Dinah draws glasses, a mustache, and bad teeth on her own poster.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: One of many such films made in the '60s in the wake of A Hard Day's Night.
- Publicity Stunt: Ad executive Leon Zissell (David de Keyser) takes advantage of Dinah's disappearance by telling everyone that Steve has kidnapped her in order to drum up even more publicity for meat.
- Rule of Pool: The characters attend a party at the Roman Baths. Once the party spills out into the actual bath area, people almost immediately start jumping and falling into the pool.
- Synchronised Morning Routine: The movie opens with Steve and his friends being awoken by their organ alarm clock, getting ready for the day in their flat, and exercising in a nearby playground.
- Titled After the Song: "Catch Us If You Can" and "Having a Wild Weekend" are both Dave Clark Five songs that are featured in the movie.
- The Voiceless: Lenny Davidson doesn't have a single line. Occasionally he'll try to speak, but someone else will cut him off. At a costume party, he dresses as Harpo Marx.
