Ferry Cross the Mersey is a 1964 British musical comedy film produced by Brian Epstein, directed by Jeremy Summers, and starring Gerry And The Pacemakers.
Gerry and Fred Marsden, Chad Chadwick, and Les McGuire are art students and rock musicians in Liverpool. Gerry's girlfriend Dodie Dawson (Julie Samuel) helps the band get a manager, Jack Hanson (T.P. McKenna), and they enter a music competition.
Ferry Cross the Mersey contains examples of:
- As Himself: Besides Gerry and the Pacemakers, such other '60s British pop figures as Cilla Black, The Fourmost, and Jimmy Savile appear in this manner.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: During a silent film-style chase scene where the Pacemakers try to retrieve instruments that were accidentally sent to the airport while pursued by cops, one of the cops looks at the camera, says "A camera! Now's my chance!" and launches into a dance routine while the chase continues in the background.
- Diegetic Switch: During the opening scene, "It's Gonna Be Alright" plays in the background while the band gets off a plane and into a car, which drives off. The scene then changes to the band recording the song in a studio.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Gerry's Aunt Lil (Mona Washbourne) promised his mother he would become a great artist, like Rembrandt. She disapproves of the "heathen music" he plays.
- Groupie Brigade: The opening scene shows throngs of screaming girls greeting the Pacemakers at the airport.
- How We Got Here: The movie opens with Gerry and the Pacemakers as big international stars, and then flashes back to before they made it big.
- Mistaken for Suicidal: Gerry jams a coat under his bedroom door so the music from downstairs won't distract him. Aunt Lil knocks on the door and gets no response, then sees the coat under the door and assumes he's jammed himself in to kill himself. Mr Lumsden (George A. Cooper) rams the door open to find Gerry listening to the radio under the covers, which is why he didn't hear Aunt Lil knocking.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: For Gerry and the Pacemakers.
- Titled After the Song: One of the band's hits, which they play in the movie aboard an actual ferry.
- Undercrank: Used in an early scene of Gerry getting dressed. The music he's listening to is sped up and high-pitched. Also used during the chase scene.
- Waving Signs Around The Pacemakers' fans wave signs supporting them, in the opening scene and later during the competition.
