The Knack... And How to Get It

The Knack... And How to Get It

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DVD Reviews of The Knack... And How to Get It

DVD Review: WE ARE ALL, MORE OR LESS, SEXUAL FALURES...
Summary: 5 Stars

When someone askes me to name my favourite film I usually say "The Knack...and how to get it" which is almost always met with a puzzled look in responce; so few people have seen this movie, even though it won the main prize at Cannes the year it was made and was a popular and commercial success across the world, that you might be forgiven for thinking that perhaps it had been surpressed or maybe overtaken by fashion that lumped all the "Swinging London" films together and forgot them. Either way I think it is a neglected clasic that deserves wider recognision.

Taken from a not very successful play by Ann Jellicoe, that ran at the Royal Court experimental theatre for six weeks about a year before it was filmed, Charles Wood's screenplay expanded the action away from the run-down house, which is at the centre of the play, to use London as the backdrop for the film; not tourist London but the back streets and slightly run down areas of Shepherd's Bush. The true masterstoke was to give the running commentary by the old people on what the four main (young) characters are up to. This babble is so typical of the British attitude to sex sensorious, but at the same time obsessed and slightly regretting that they haven't done it themselves that it is hillarious. This aspect of the film is clearly influenced by Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" but used here it takes on it's own identity. Charles Wood also has a small part in the film himself; he is one of the Guardsmen that Nancy encounters in their "Bear Skins" (pun fully intended) while trying to find the YWCA.

The performances by the main actors are all superb. Michael Crawford as the accident prone, sex starved Colin, living in his run down Victorian house, who careers from one disaster to another is clearly the reletive of Frank Spencer the character Crawford played to such great effect in the 1970's "Some Mother's Do 'ave 'em" before he went on to even greater success in West End and Broadway musical theatre.

Ray Brooks delivers a totally beliveable Tolan, the superior, promiscous man living on the top floor of Colin's house who's self confidence eventually leads to his own downfall. A year after making this Brooks was the male lead in "Cathy Come Home", one of the most famous British television plays of all time, which shocked a nation by graphically showing the full reality of the homeless in the UK. It is difficult to imagine two more contrasting rolls.

Donal Donelly as Tom the manic painter and decorator who acts as the catalyst bringing the other elements of the film together. He was in some other 1960 movies including "Waterloo" but I haven't seen him in anything for a very long time now.

Rita Tushingham always has a vulnerability about her and never more so than in this film as Nancy. She arrives in London and wanders haplesly around costantly being mis directed to the YWCA until she comes across Colin and Tom in a junk yard. As she comes to know the other characters she comes under Tolan's spell until she suddenly finds she is in love with Colin. Tushingham handles her part well as she develops from the innocent new girl in town to the more confident woman at the end of the picture via a sort of breakdown after which she accuses all and sundry of "rape". It is this aspect of the film which has drawn most criticim bringing with it accusations of misogyny. I don't think that it is justified after all nobody gets raped they just shout it a lot!

John Barry's score brings the whole film together; He uses a choir of womens voices and the jazz organist Alan Haven, who had previously enlivened the opening titles of "From Russia With Love", to a variety of moods with one basic theme in 3/4 time. It is one of the most creative uses of music I can think of.

Richard Lester directed this gem of a film on location at break neck speed just as he had some months earlier with "A Hard Day's Night". His surreal imagination, sense of humour and love of scilent movies all combine to make one of the most original films ever made. Using black and white stock allowed him greater freedom to film in awkward locations as well as to experiment with over exposure so what started out as a budget restriction became a creative tool. There are some wonderful individual shots; at one point, for instance, Colin, Tom and Nancy are seen throwing stones in the river and there is a shot of their reflection it is only there for a few seconds but it is the composition of the film for me. It is rare to find a film which has good dialoge and creative cinamatography.

On DVD the film looks great even with so few extra features. I was pleased that there were suptitles as some of the lines of dialoge are a bit indisdinct and even as a native English speaker I've often wondered what they were.

One final thing. Whenever I'm feeling a bit depressed I often look at this film and it never fails to make me feel better you never know perhaps it will do the same for you.

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