Ferry Cross the Mersey

This must have been made very soon after the smash success of the Beatles film "A hard day's night", and it is virtually a carbon copy. In the mid-Sixties most of the beat groups (especially those managed by Brian Epstein) were prodded into making films, of varying quality.

This one starts off very well, with some documentary footage of Liverpool and its people, emphasising the poverty of the place, then followed by what looks like genuine footage taken inside the legendary Cavern club, with the band performing in the darkness and heat.

Unfortunately, when the film decides that it wants to tell a STORY, things slide rapidly downhill. It all becomes silly and unfunny, though I've got to say that the actress playing Gerry's blonde girlfriend is an absolute knockout - whatever happened to her ??? A highlight is seeing the band on the famous ferry, performing their best-known song, and it really takes you (well, it took ME) to Liverpool in the Sixties, giving a poignant reminder that for just a few years, the 'pool really did seem like the happiest place in Britain.

I wonder why this film has never officially resurfaced? Legal hassles resulting from the breaking-up of Brian Epstein's business empire?

Another '60s pop flick that followed in the wake of the Beatle's "Hard Day's Night".

Shot on location in Liverpool. Entertaining enough in its own way. Looks like it contains some genuine concert footage and there are a number of guest appearances by some of the big name "Merseybeat" stars of the era. Lots of toe tappers throughout and, of course, there's that wonderful theme song.

Marsden and Co. handled comedy with a certain breezy efficiency as did the Fab Four and the Monkees which is more than you can say for today's tedious collection of mumbling, rude and generally unlikable pop and rock stars.

Rarely shows up on television these days but worth watching out for.

"Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" is a hard film to find and if you want to see it you'll have to hunt around for it. This is a surprise, as Gerry & the Pacemakers were a big part of the Merseybeat scene that produced the Beatles and the British Invasion of the U. S. that followed. The title song was a big hit in early 1965 and was a well known song becoming the group's most famous. You would think that there would be enough interest from Boomers and Beatles fans to keep it easily available, but it has sunk into almost complete oblivion. Often this can be due to legal reasons over ownership, but here I imagine that no one felt there was an audience for it. It was made by many of the people who made "A Hard Day's Night" - produced by Brian Epstein, scored by George Martin and shot by the great cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, who not only lensed "A Hard Day's Night", but also "Dr. Strangelove", "The Omen", and "Star Wars. (1977). Of course there were two big differences. DirectorJeremy Summers came from British television and while he did quite a good job, he wasn't the inspired Richard Lester. Secondly, Gerry Marsden composed the songs for the film, but he was not Lennon and McCartney and Gerry & the Pacemakers weren't the Beatles.

The band arrived in America near the end of the first wave of the British Invasion in the early summer of 1964 along with Peter & Gordon and Chad & Jeremy. A second wave would arrive in the fall with harder groups like the Kinks, the Animals and the Rolling Stones (whose first top 10 hit was "Time Is On My Side"). They had a string of six hit singles with the film's title song and "It's gonna Be Alright" the last but for a momentary resurfacing in the fall of '66 with :Girl On a Swing". Like almost all of the British Invasion bands they had a much bigger career in Britain, where their first three songs were all number ones. In their early days they were real rockers doing wild performances of songs like "Rip It Up" and "Reelin' and Rockin'" and here we do get the last part of a really hot take on "Slow Down" by the band at the legendary Cavern Club, the epicenter of Merseybeat where the Beatles became famous. (Just for this glimpse at the club and its patrons in its heyday the film has cultural value). But the band's singles were all in a pop vein with the bigger hits being orchestrated ballads like "Ferry" and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying.".

The movie begins with the band arriving back in Liverpool with a throng of screaming fans awaiting them while the soundtrack plays "It's Gonna Be Alright", an uptempo, basically acoustic number. Throughout the film the band is shown drawing crowds and screams every time they begin to play, even extemporaneously in a warehouse, which makes them seem a bit bigger than they were. Though they had ardent fans in Liverpool, the intensity of the crowds seemed more Beatles-level than what they actually might have experienced. After the airport, the rest of the film is a flashback to their early days. Epstein insisted that almost everything be filmed in or near Gerry's own neighborhood, so we get a rare view of Liverpool in 1964. A light plot entails Gerry living with his Aunt Lil (Mona Washburn in a delightful performance) and what seem to be two comically stuffy boarders. Gerry's rich girlfriend Dodie (she lives in the Tudor manor house, Speke Hall) helps him find a manager, but the manager, Jack Hanson, can only get them a recording contract if they win the big beat contest, a kind of Battle of the Bands.

The film is pleasant without ever really exceeding what fans of the band would expect. The Beatles were already four distinct personalities to their fans even before they made their first film, while most other bands were rather faceless in the days of radio hits. The Pacemakers (Gerry's older brother Fred as drummer, Les Chadwick on bass and Les Maguire on keyboards) were a fairly average-looking group who do their best in the scenes they're given, but don't possess the charisma to really stand out. These are mostly comic bits like their sped-up boyish antics in a warehouse, semi-pandemonium at Art School and a meal at a Chinese restaurant The film seems to portray them as a mild version of the Marx Brothers, bringing a bit of anarchy wherever they go. To the film's credit Dodie's father approves of Gerry despite not appreciating the music, avoiding cliche and melodrama. Gerry's songs are interspersed throughout with the best non title song setting being an impromptu, crowd-gathering "Baby, You're So Good To Me" at Frank Hessy's Music Store. Of course the title song is actually staged on the Montwood ferryboat as it crosses the River Mersey. The song was given a wonderfully evocative orchestral backing by George Martin from which the strings are omitted in this scene to make it sound like it was really being sung on the boat. The final credits repeat the song with the full orchestration. Martin wrote the instrumental score for the film as well. There's a nice moment when Gerry leaves home on his motorbike and, filmed from above amid the warehouses and docks of Liverpool, is accompanied by a big, minor key romantic theme and for a moment it seems like "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg".

Of course everything builds to the big contest at the Locarno Ballroom with its 50 foot stage, three balconies and over 3,000 person capacity. The boys' instruments have been accidentally sent to the airport and they must frantically get there and back to even be able to play. This creates an extended Keystone Kops sequence. "Will they make it?" provides the only tension in the film but it also gives us a chance to hear a few more genuinely popular Mersey bands play on stage. I wish they had been allowed to play longer. The Fourmost do a rather folky song rather than one of their typical hits like "A Little Loving". Eric Royce & the Olympians perform the rock and roll and rockabilly-ish "Shake a Tail Feather" and the Black Knights do the Nashville Teens-like "I Got a Woman". Best are the Blackwells with their hair dyed platinum blond with the bluesy rocker "Why Don't You Love Me". Their look matches that of stage emcee Jimmy Saville, considered a harmless eccentric at this time, but who turned out to be a despicable monster in real life. Finally we get a full song, "Is It Love?" by Cilla Black, pressed into it to stall for time so Gerry can make it (with her manager and future husband Bobby Willis almost unrecognizable in horn rim glasses in the scene). She was a one-hit artist in the States ("You're My World") but had a legendary career in Britain with hit after hit, over time becoming a national treasure. Overall this film is fun and full of energy and enthusiasm and captures something of a special place at a special time. It deserves a few more fans and does not deserve oblivion..

Some may view this film as inferior to A Hard Day's Night. But Ferry Cross The Mersey should be viewed as a companion piece to the Beatles classic.

The Gerry & The Pacemakers' film is to Liverpool as the Beatles' film is to London (or thereabouts). One is about a musical group trying to make it big while the other is about a group that has made it big. The two films together present a more accurate picture of the Mersey scene and its effect on popular culture.

While the Pacemaker's film isn't nearly as smart and the band members aren't nearly as engaging as the Beatles, there is plenty of heart and honesty to go around. Gerry and The Pacemakers don't try and be what they're not.

Ferry Cross The Mersey also features quality musical selections throughout and it's a joy to listen to. The other local groups that compete in the battle of the bands display the grit and energy of the Liverpool scene. It's exciting stuff.

This underrated film really captures the style & feel of the times and should be seen as a companion piece to A Hard Day's Night.

I'm watching this film as I write this!

Every now and again in the cinema the audience as one feels a moment of magic and this for me was one of them. I saw 'Ferry Cross The Mersey' at its world premiere at the Odeon in Glasgow on 20th December 1964. (Held there because Gerry was featuring in a week long gig called Gerry's Christmas Cracker' the following week.) The showing was a sell-out. It was always going to be compared to 'Hard Day's Night', but this film has a rougher feel and captures the grittiness of a long lost Liverpool with its factories, Chinese restaurants and dance halls (complete with a real life fight that the cameras were around to catch). The music is more than pleasant and I played the soundtrack album during much of early 1965 (and bought it again on CD when it came out). The whole thing is carried along by Gerry's personality and although there is support from 'proper' actors like Mona Washbourne as his aunt, the wonderful George A Cooper as an undertaker lodger, Julie Samuel as the love of Gerry's life (although she comes second to his love of music) and that great character actor Thomas Patrick McKenna as the manager who knows the boys have something. From the opening chords of 'It's Gonna Be All Right' to a sweat show in the Cavern through to the iconic performance of a guitar carrying Gerry singing the title song on the ferry, through to the silent film comedy tribute and the band zooming around everywhere on scooters, this is a film that today's audiences would probably dismiss as naïve and unsophisticated – but at the end I came out of the cinema feeling happy and positive and not too many films do that.

It also has Cilla Black (with her husband to be Bobby Willis by her side) doing the rather dull 'Is It Love' which graced the b side of her #1 hit 'You're My World', and a guest appearance by Jimmy Savile will probably make sure it never gets a DVD release, but the real star turn is the city and the wonderful people of Liverpool.

Here's what I said about it in my book 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)' which covers just about every film released in the UK in the 1960s.

'Glasgow didn't get too many world premieres, but the Odeon had one on Sunday and "Ferry Cross The Mersey" starring Gerry And The Pacemakers even managed to get to Scotland some five weeks before Gerry's hometown of Liverpool. In fact business was so good on the Sunday opening, that there was standing room only, and although Gerry's last single 'It's Gonna Be Alright' had stalled outside the Top Ten, the title song was about to give him a big hit and something he would sing right through his very long career. The story (by 'Coronation Street' deviser Tony Warren) is about Gerry and his group trying to win a beat contest and much of the dialogue was improvised, but the songs were catchy and Gerry has an incredible personality, which helped carry the whole thing. "For Those Who Think Young" with it underlined the differences between Britain and America where all the teenagers were driving cars to school and having romantic flings on beaches all in colour. Good fun.'

Post script: I once met Gerry in the 1980s and he looked at me and said loudly 'I know you don't I?' in front of a load of people. He didn't – but it gave me another moment of magic.

Jim Doyle is the author of 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)', 'What We Watched In The 1970s (In The Cinema)" and 'What We Watched In The 1980s (In The Cinema And On Video)'