FERRY CROSS THE MERSEY

Image result for Ferry Cross the Mersey 1965 movie

GB
1965
1hr 28mins
Dir: Jeremy Summers
Starring: Gerry Marsden and Mona Washbourne

A pop band forms for a music competition

This musical film featuring Gerry and the Pacemakers followed a popular genre of the time. It is frequently considered by many to be their equivalent of The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night (qv). It is arguably a better spectacle too, but this will largely depend on which band one prefers. Unfortunately, whereas A Hard Day’s Night has gone down in folklore as a valuable piece of Beatlemania, readily available and often shown, Ferry Cross the Mersey has never been shown on television, nor released on video. It features a classic ‘Keystone Kops’-style comedy sequence towards the end with a hearse speeding through the streets of Liverpool, and at one point being chased through the docks by a Class 03 diesel shunter with a match wagon, a rare loco type to be captured on film. There are brief glimpses during this sequence of box vans and cattle trucks in the yards, but the footage is rather poor.

The hearse speeds into the docks and crosses a quite complex network of lines
In the foreground, the hearse makes haste, whilst behind, a Class 03 shunter gives chase. Note the match wagon in front of the Class 03.
In this closeup view of the Class 03, a pair of shunting staff are riding on either side of the match wagon
With the Class 03 hot on its heels, the hearse emerges from between a rake of box vans on the left, and a rake of cattle vans on the right