Following the Beatles example, it was inevitable that other successful British Invasion bands would climb aboard the movie bandwagon. For a time, both here and in the States, the Dave Clark Five were probably the next most popular group of the day and were natural candidates for the big-screen. Like the Beatles, the direction gig was given to a young, up-and-coming director who would go on to greater things, in this case John Boorman, who boldly avoids the cheap cash-in route to instead come up with an ambitious,
rather odd, individualistic road movie commenting as it goes on the generation gap, the price of fame and ultimately conformity (or not) with the expectations of society.
The film starts with a similar scene to one later used in "Help!" with the group living together in one big place, although one noticeably less salubrious than the posh pad the Beatles inhabit and also coincidentally shares with it another location, namely Salisbury Plain where again the army are on manoeuvres. But there the resemblance ends as Boorman undertakes, literally a very different journey with his film.
Band-leader Clark, besides being about the only good-looking guy in the group gets the main gig here as Steve who runs away with advertising "It Girl" Barbara Ferris's Dinah, ostensibly for her to buy an island retreat (ironically, something the Beatles also considered doing themselves, a few years later). With the rest of the group in often Keystone Cops-type pursuit, along with the national press pursuing a trumped-up kidnap story by Ferris's manager, we see Clark and Ferris hitch up with a bunch of nihilistic beatniks on the Plain actively passing round joints, then get taken in hand by the odd, slightly sinister middle-aged couple of Robin Bailey and a pre-Mildred Yootha Joyce who seem keen to get the attractive young couple bathed and disrobed as a prelude to who knows what. The rest of the group here catches up with them and they all dress up for a fancy-dress ball with Mike Smith making an especially unbecoming Jean Harlow.
The climax takes place at the island which turns out not to be the panacea the couple were hoping for leaving them to make their own individual decisions to accept or reject their respective confining day-jobs.
Like I said, this was a strange, off-beat affair and while I admire Boorman's own act of rebellion in not rushing to direct a cheap movie exploiting the group's fame, it ultimately failed to take me far down the road with it. There's no chemistry between Clark and Ferris, and the former, for all his pearly-white, saturnine good-looks never seems comfortable with his lines. His band-mates seem to be in a different movie altogether and can act even less than their leader. As for the music, the bright, successful title-song apart, it's similarly nondescript.
The film wants to be hip and happening in the way that other contemporary "youth" films like "The Knack, And How To Use It" or "Darling" also tried to be but, saddled with its pop-group cast, (there is noticeably no staged group musical performance anywhere in the film) one suspects that Boorman would rather the group wasn't in the film at all. In the end, I found it too lightweight and disjointed to really capture my attention far less hold it for its running-time, more "Bits and Pieces" than "Glad All Over", I guess you'd have to say.
The film starts with a similar scene to one later used in "Help!" with the group living together in one big place, although one noticeably less salubrious than the posh pad the Beatles inhabit and also coincidentally shares with it another location, namely Salisbury Plain where again the army are on manoeuvres. But there the resemblance ends as Boorman undertakes, literally a very different journey with his film.
Band-leader Clark, besides being about the only good-looking guy in the group gets the main gig here as Steve who runs away with advertising "It Girl" Barbara Ferris's Dinah, ostensibly for her to buy an island retreat (ironically, something the Beatles also considered doing themselves, a few years later). With the rest of the group in often Keystone Cops-type pursuit, along with the national press pursuing a trumped-up kidnap story by Ferris's manager, we see Clark and Ferris hitch up with a bunch of nihilistic beatniks on the Plain actively passing round joints, then get taken in hand by the odd, slightly sinister middle-aged couple of Robin Bailey and a pre-Mildred Yootha Joyce who seem keen to get the attractive young couple bathed and disrobed as a prelude to who knows what. The rest of the group here catches up with them and they all dress up for a fancy-dress ball with Mike Smith making an especially unbecoming Jean Harlow.
The climax takes place at the island which turns out not to be the panacea the couple were hoping for leaving them to make their own individual decisions to accept or reject their respective confining day-jobs.
Like I said, this was a strange, off-beat affair and while I admire Boorman's own act of rebellion in not rushing to direct a cheap movie exploiting the group's fame, it ultimately failed to take me far down the road with it. There's no chemistry between Clark and Ferris, and the former, for all his pearly-white, saturnine good-looks never seems comfortable with his lines. His band-mates seem to be in a different movie altogether and can act even less than their leader. As for the music, the bright, successful title-song apart, it's similarly nondescript.
The film wants to be hip and happening in the way that other contemporary "youth" films like "The Knack, And How To Use It" or "Darling" also tried to be but, saddled with its pop-group cast, (there is noticeably no staged group musical performance anywhere in the film) one suspects that Boorman would rather the group wasn't in the film at all. In the end, I found it too lightweight and disjointed to really capture my attention far less hold it for its running-time, more "Bits and Pieces" than "Glad All Over", I guess you'd have to say.