John Boorman's first film is not only a copybook exercise in editing, but a good effort at keeping up with the Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night', choosing to showcase instead The Dave Clark Five. Boorman commented at the time that he was disappointed with the film and you can understand why, since it's too empty to work on anything but a surface level. All the ingredients for an offbeat cynical comedy in mid Sixties mould are here - a madcap fancy dress ball, a group of beatniks rounded up by territorials on Salisbury Plain, a blase married couple who seduce the film's innocent teenage runaways, a rundown western ranch in the heart of Devon - but somehow the enterprise as a whole doesn't come off. Still, there's a great theme song, and some of Manny Wynn's photography of the snow covered countryside is quite beautiful.


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