Reviews

While I agree with the reviewer who watched the whole thing, gave it 2 stars and said some legitimately nice things about the considerable work that goes into any filmmaking, etc., I couldn't I made it past 15 minutes.

The setting is credible and the casting was OK, but I truly have seen better high school and very amateur community theatre productions. The film *could* have been good camp but it just didn't sufficiently pass muster in any category.

The best I can say is that it appears everyone showed up for work and went through their paces--blocking was OK, actors seemed to know their lines, the costumes were mostly credible, but the actors' movements didn't appear natural, the dialogue was stilted, and the facial emotions (especially Josh Margulies) were worse than vaudeville.

I'll give it a D- for effort. Sorry.

I, too, had high hopes for this film, but was also sadly disappointed.

The film's greatest assets are, not surprisingly, its wonderful cast: It was great to see Dick Van Dyke and (the late) Angela Lansbury continuing to give it their professional "all," along with so many other talented artists.

Other high points go to the set and props, costumes and hair styles, which are all period-appropriate, and its lovely score (more on that below)

Its liabilities, however, are too many to be ignored. The makeup work (notably Van Dyke's) is inconsistent to the point of being splotchy and, therefore, distracting. The film and sound editing, especially in the scenes with singing, are lacking; the actors (especially Ioan Gruffudd) tend to look and sound dubbed, and the sound is at times inconsistent with the scene's contexts.

While the film has all the trappings of a charming family movie, it could have been told in less than the nearly two hours it occupies. While the double story works acceptably, since it is only peripherally parallel, there is no real reason for it, and I think the film would likely have been more successful had it followed a more Disney- or Hallmark-ish story line telling only Annabelle's story.

I was unfamiliar with Tim Janis prior to this film; while I give him fine marks for the score (he is best known as a composer), I wouldn't recommend him as a director. Also, as other reviewers have observed, there are no writing credits listed in the film-or here-but they're provided on Mr. Janis' website; since no other attribution is given, one must assume that it is their original work. I find it interesting that Mr. Janis has the ego to put his name above the title but somehow fails to list himself and his wife, Elizabeth Demmer as the writers.

This is one of those occasions when the writer should not be the director of his own writing, as he apparently lacks the objectivity to see the flaws that could so easily have been corrected during the filming. This might have been minimized with the oversight of an established studio but, with Ms. Deming, an otherwise uncredited, sole producer, many of the film's flaws appears to be the result of a vanity production.

I would like to see this film re-edited under the guidance of a more experienced producer and/or director to keep all that works well-including, of course, Van Dyke's and Lansbury's appearances-but cut what doesn't ... or (though I'm generally not big on remakes) for it to be reworked entirety.

I haven't seen this film since its theatrical release in 1965, when it was shown (first) on the same movie bill with "Help!" I saw "A Hard Day's Night" in first release the previous year, and did not find "Ferry Across the Mersey" to be "a carbon copy" of The Beatles' film (as suggested by another reviewer).

Beatles fans were hungry for anything even peripherally related to them, and this look at *their* Liverpool couldn't have been more welcome. Like many other Beatles fans, I was fairly ambivalent about most other British groups, but I, too, became a fan of Gerry & the Pacemakers after seeing the film.

Especially with all the interest by subsequent generations in "the British invasion" and other phenomena of the 1960s music scene (and the nostalgic interest by those of us who lived it), I am surprised this film hasn't been released on video/DVD, and would certainly add my voice to those requesting it.