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)'
