Cinema: Follow-the-Leader

Having a Wild Weekend is the Dave Clark Five’s hectic attempt to trot in the Beatles’ cinematic footsteps. If they, in turn, are going to be followed by the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the other rock-a-pop groups with Beatle haircuts, this new vague may well be the most depressing thing to happen in darkened theaters since Follow-the-Bouncing-Ball.

This too is a chase—through some of the most boring location shots outside of home movies. Fleeing from an evil advertising man, Dave Clark, who looks like a conscientious dropout, takes sad-faced Model Barbara Ferris scuba-diving in a deserted swimming pool, tree-watching in a deserted botanical garden, and wandering through a deserted factory that turns out to be full of pot-smoking beatniks and is inexplicably attacked by the British army (the adults they meet are all bad). Before they run out of location shots, Dave and Barbara have also taken a walk in the snow on a deserted road, gone horseback-riding at an all-but-deserted dude ranch. Talked Things Over in a deserted bus, and dashed across some deserted sand dunes, only to be run to earth by the evil adman in a deserted summer resort. It all lurches to a halt with Model Ferris on her way back to plugging meat and the Five on their way to Nowheresville.