Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, director Richard Lester followed up his ground-breaking A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – which helped put the swing in the step of 60s British cinema – with this similarly acrobatic, tongue-in-cheek and delightfully frivolous take on swinging London and the sexual revolution.
The Knack …and How to Get It is an adaptation of a 1962 farce by Ann Jellicoe; a parody – startlingly diagnostic for so early in the decade – of male arrogance in attitudes to women in this sex-expectant era. Cool and sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks, Carry on Abroad 1972) has a monopoly on womanising with a long line of conquests to prove it while the naïve and gawky young Colin (Michael Crawford, Hello, Dolly 1969) desperately wants a piece of it.
But when Colin falls for spirited funny-face (the shining star of the film Rita Tushingham, A Taste of Honey 1961), whom he literally picks up while pushing his new brass bed through the streets of London, it's not long before the self-assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war, or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?
Tuesday 23rd October
85 min
18+
Film Festival
