El knack... y cómo lograrlo

There are lots of things to like in this movie: glimpses of London, black and white photography, likable young actors, old fogies, fast pace, great music, but one gets the impression that the original play was cut, and there is nothing that would have interested me more than the uncut play, flaws and all. That would have been more interesting than the touches from Max Sennett and Jacques Tati.

The play's central message seems quite conventional: nerd gets the best girl, playboy overwhelmed with his mannequins. For all the mockery of the old folks, the values permeating this plot are old folks' values. The view of women is passive. They don't swing, they are merely "taken advantage of", and the nicest girls is the most virginal, as if sexual activity were incompatible with niceness, and virginity were incompatible with napalm. But that's movies for you: always asserting the unassailable, rocking the cradle instead of the boat.

Tushingam steals the show. She has more screen presence than Garbo.

A young and sexually frustrated school teacher rents out a room in his old house to a hip drummer with a motorcycle who is an expert at seduction in the hope of learning how he does it. Crazy editing and a haphazard style make it a challenge for those of us brought up on westerns and film noirs. A youth movie for the 60's with Rita Tushingham who seemed to embody that period of youthful British cinema, with a decidedly British humor and a take on society and sex, all wrapped up in the anarchy of free form movie making. Similar in style to Lester's "Hard Day's Night" but without the Beatles to carry it, this film relies more on the patience of the viewer, as it has a nice little story within the chaos.

'Richard' Lester (as he was then billed) had just scored a huge hit with 'A Hard Day's Night' and before he moved on to 'Help' indulged himself with this raucous adaptation of Ann Jellicoe's play which today looks more of a museum piece than either of the films he made with the Fab Four (compounded with a light-hearted attitude to rape that certainly won't sit well with today's #MeToo generation).

Set off by a snazzy score by John Barry, in it's frantic desire to be 'with it' it gets rather tiring and it's sobering to reflect that most of the bright young things that inhabit it are now in their eighties; but if you look fast you'll spot a wetsuited eighteen year-old Charlotte Rampling who still looks just as icily handsome in her late seventies.

Richard Lester was the one with the knack...the knack for providing snapshots of Swinging London, and for that we should all be grateful. With The Knack...and How To Get It, Lester builds on his triumph of A Hard Day's Night with a winning cast, dynamic cinematography and a hilarious screenplay.

Michael Crawford carries this film. He is, in short, adorable as the sexually frustrated milquetoast Colin. Another actor may have played Colin as pathetic; Crawford seems to have insight as to Colin's predicament and instead plays him as a well-meaning innocent. Ray Brooks is suitably slimy as skirt-chasing Tolen. Rita Tushingham is the very portrait of a British bird circa 1965, and a fine comedienne at that. My favorite character in the film, though, is Donal Donnelly as Tom. He really serves no ostensible purpose other than comic relief, which he amply provides. His timing is wonderful, especially playing off Ray Brooks.

Lines from the screenplay make me laugh as I think about them, and the various plays on words throughout the film are incredibly clever.

"Skirt is meat." Watch this film and see what I mean.

This is a manic Richard Lester comedy very similar to "A Hard Days Night," and if you liked that movie you'll like this one. It's a somewhat rambling froth-of-life tale about an awkward young man (Michael Crawford) who wants to learn how to pick up girls from his popular housemate (Ray Brooks). Brooks' attempt to instruct Crawford in the mysteries of the knack go hilariously awry when the pair encounter the flighty Rita Tushingham.

I'm a little surprised that this won a Palme d'Or, but it IS very funny in a not-too over-the-top way. It's dramatically superior to contemporary early '60's comedy, and the principals turn in wonderful performances. If you like it, be sure to check out Lester's sunny nonsense "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and the distinctly darker "How I Won the War."