Lee Eisenberg In between "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", Richard Lester directed this look at swinging London. "The Knack ...and How to Get It" has the same sort of humor as Lester's collaborations with the Beatles (and even takes time to show the generation gap). Unfortunately, the depictions of gender relations are dated at best, and the last part of the movie turns rape into a joke. This will come across as especially inappropriate in an era when large numbers of women have exposed some notable men as sexual predators.Aside from that, the movie is enjoyable. A fair amount of zany stuff and rapid-fire dialogue make it something that you'll probably like watching, understanding that it's very much a product of its time.

ShadeGrenade As the '60's progressed, a sea change took place in British film comedy. Norman Wisdom and St.Trinians were suddenly out-of-date ( though they kept on going for a few more years ), and a new wave of Britcoms appeared, among them 'The Knack'.Richard Lester had just made 'A Hard Days' Night' and brought the same mindset to this picture. Coming a year before Time magazine published its famous 'Swinging London' article, it depicts a Britain on the cusp of a cultural and ( more importantly ) sexual revolution. As Spike Millgan later put it: "Queen Victoria died in 1960!".It is arty ( shot in glorious black and white ), sexist, often irritating, yet manages in its own way to say something serious about human relationships.Michael Crawford stars as 'Colin', a shy, repressed schoolteacher brassed off because his boarder, the good-looking 'Tolen' ( Ray Brooks ) has a knack for 'pulling the birds'. Tolen is the Russell Brand of his day; girls are literally queueing outside his room at all times for sex. Tolen offers Colin a masterclass in the art of seduction.Tolen's attitude to the fairer sex is: "I see, I want and I take", the sort of chauvinistic attitude probably responsible for Women's Lib in the first place. But even his powers are about to be tested to the limit when along comes Nancy ( Rita Tushingham ) a Northern lass newly arrived in London in search of lodgings. Nancy is immune to Tolen's 'Mr.Tight Trousers' persona, and when he tries to get fresh with her she cries 'Rape!'.A number of reviewers have described the movie as 'dated'. They are absolutely right. But it is fascinating for that reason alone. It is now a quaint museum piece, the sexual attitudes and mores of the era are on view and are fascinating. It may surprise some to learn that the play on which the film is based was written by a woman - Ann Jellicoe.Lester took the play and opened it out ( with help from screenwriter Charles Wood ), turning it into a visual delight. Surrealism had finally joined the comedy mainstream. The jokes come at you so fast you need to be quick to pick them up. For instance, when Colin wonders whether to let his front room to a monk, we suddenly cut to a bus full of monks. When he gets angry and tries to keep Tolen out of the house by boarding up the front door, the film turns into a mini-lecture on carpentry.Throughout a Greek chorus of elderly people comment on events. "I know what she's looking for and its not the Y.W.C.A.!". Their remarks are much the same as you would hear nowadays. Being too old for sex themselves, they frown on the younger generation for being able to do it. Its these quirky flourishes that gives the film much of its charm. The famous scene where Colin, Nancy and Tom push a bed through the streets of London employs a style that was later used on 'The Monkees' and 'The Goodies'.The cast are excellent, in particular Donal Donnelly as an eccentric Irishman with a mad compulsion to paint everything white. Michael Crawford's 'Colin' has all the naivety of his later ( better known ) role of 'Frank Spencer'. Tushingham's innocent waif is appealing. As 'Tolen', all quiff and dark glasses, Ray Brooks is the epitome of '60's cool, a man who has women falling for him like dominoes. Watching this again recently, it occurred to me what a great vehicle for Peter Cook and Dudley Moore this would have made. The humour is broadly in line with what the duo were doing on 'Not Only But Also'. You can easily imagine Cook as 'Tolen' and Moore as 'Colin'. Perhaps these characters inspired the ones they later played in 'Bedazzled'. The film has its share of longueurs, however. Colin pretending to be a lion is something I think it could have done without. And Nancy's cries of 'Rape!' to passers-by have ensured it a high place on the 'it has not aged well' movie lists. 'Comedy has a new freedom' gushed Newsweek magazine at the time of its release. Absolutely. Rather than being brushed under the carpet, sex was now openly talked about on screen. There was to be no going back. Nudity and bad language would soon enter the equation.I must mention John Barry's marvellous score. He was on the top of his game here ( having just done 'Goldfinger' and 'Zulu' ) and the music perfectly accompanies the offbeat action. You will be humming that gorgeous title theme for days.If you want a British movie that has 'Sixties' written all over it, look no further. It also manages to be a life-affirming, witty and accomplished piece of work.

mdm-11 The mod 60's are shown as the ultimate challenge to have as many sexual encounters as humanly possible. Anyone who doesn't have "it" (the knack for seduction) is a loser. That's the overall message here.A handful of homosexual actors pretending to be sex starved ladies men desperate to "score", along with countless elderly finger shakers who insist the youth in their day had better moral sense, are leading through mini-scenes, enveloped in a surprisingly palatable 60s British Jazz score.I found very few laughs in this nonsense. The use of a photo booth to take kinky nude shots, an inuendo spewing male sales clerk in a ladies' dress shop, and many other "cute items" are lost on a serious cinema fan. The big stir this film caused Internationally, garnering various prestigious awards, is a mystery to me.I found this film to be absolutely boring and a waste of time. Two points for the fetching Jazz score. One point is shared by Acting and plot (both forgettable). Save yourself the time and money, and watch an old episode of "The Avengers" instead!

vlvetmorning98 Richard Lester's spellbinding look at mid-60's England told from the perspective of three mods. Blatantly un-PC and defiantly unique, this film is a brilliant burst of happiness. Rita Tushingham is the quintessential British actress: cheeky, uninhibited, and always one step ahead of her male counterparts. Go watch this film!