As a teenager in the 60's and loving the British Invasion groups, I fell for the Dave Clark Five. To see them in a movie was the greatest thing. Even though the DC5 were always second to the Beatles we still loved them. Looking at the movie now, I still enjoy the campyness of this movie. Just to see Dave and the boys for 90 minutes still makes my day. There are a lot of movie that are worse and people love them. So for me long live The Dave Clark Five.
shareI completly agree with you. I was in junior school when they hit the big time but even at that age I found there songs so catchy and had the Beatles not been around I have no doubt that the DC5 would be as praised today as the Beatles are. There were some great variations in their records. I got back into them in the late 70's when a 'Best Of' LP(remember plastic ?) was released. I was so pleased when I saw that this film is to be released on R2 DVD next month. I'm so looking forward to a few late nights singing along.
VANQUISH3443
The film was a harmless giggle - vacant but worth hanging about for the occasional tune. I got to see them when I was about 12 or so (won a ticket in a silly contest in my home town). I was so green that I actually got a hair-cut for the occasion, was taken to the venue in a limo, got to go backstage after and meet the lads. Spent a couple of minutes talking to Mike Smith who was clearly a pleasant guy. Got a photo or two on my Instamatic, and an autograph. Got to show all this stuff off a school afterwards. So the movie was fun, and well-deserved exposure for hard-working lads who started playing to make money for football jersies and cleats.
shareI still have a copy of this film myself. I always wondered why the band never made it. They were 100% better looking than the Beatles and I thought they had some decent tunes back then. It's a shame Mike Smith and Dennis Payton died before they could be inducted into the Hall Of Fame for Rock and Roll.
shareHi I'm from Los Angeles, California and was in high school at the time of the British Invasion, and clearly recall events such as The Beatles on Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964, and their subsequent films and two Hollywood Bowl concerts, of which I attended the last one in August 1965.
The Beatles were always Number One, not only in terms of hits and record sales, but in artistic merit and showmanship and personality, with The Rolling Stones in the Number Two spot, and the Dave Clark Five in the Number Three spot right behind them for 3 years running, 1964 to 1966.
The DC5 were real hitmakers, their songs were as finely crafted as those of The Beatles and The Stones, and their showmanship was incredibly professional. As a performing band, the DC5 had few equals in their precision as a musical group. The closest any American band came to the DC5 was Paul Revere and The Raiders, in both style and substance.
It's a real shame that the DC5's one and only movie was such a bomb. I saw it when it was first released in America in August 1965, and I was so disappointed in it. Its lackluster story and situations, and rather somber, dark mood was quite the opposite of the Beatles movies, and I recalled that was the talk with others at the theater afterwards. It was also a bit dull and boring in spots.
I got a copy on DVD and revisited it again on video some 44 years later, and still came away with the same opinion of it. Not what I would have done if I were Dave Clark. The DC5 clearly needed someone like Richard Lester at the helm to give the movie some much-needed joy, showcasing the boys in the band and their youthful exuberance instead of the awful script that was filmed.
Also, I don't know why so many of these landmark historical rock movies were filmed in black & white instead of color, which gives much more depth and realism to the movie. Most black & white movies seem so flat and one-dimensional, with the exceptions of great Hollywood classics.
Dejael
never made it? they're in the r&r hall of fame! (long overdue, but still...!)
shareOf course they made it HUGE. However, I have to admit that over the years their fame has ebbed which is unfortunate. Even I who lived through the time of their biggest popularity forgot about the extent of their resume. This is until I saw a 2 hour TV special about them recently. Hey, getting old and the memory is going. But trust me - they were big, just secondary to the Beatles and Stones in England. All others ranked as lesser entities.
sharethey probably would have stayed big too, except dave clark kept too tight a grip on their catalog for too long and people forgot they existed. having their material off the market for 15 years is just insane from a music biz standpoint, but i guess dave didn't need the money and was content to let them fade away.
too bad for the general public, but at least i grabbed my copies of their stuff when it was available.
Clark coined a ton of money by getting into theatrical production in London's West End. This was a period when the big, splashy, special effects dominated shows were drawing audiences and he rode the wave of that very comfortably.
Come on lads, bags of swank!