by Richard Lester, 1965.
Starring: Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, and Rita Tushingham.
Rating: 6.5/10, 6.5/10.
A movie that’s big in mod circles? Sounds great! From the guy who directed A Hard Day’s Night? What could be better? The Knack & How To Get It? Pretty good.
Tolen (Brooks) is a man who has "the knack"—that is, he has a particular skill at seducing women. His landlord, Colin (Crawford), doesn’t, and he desperately wants it. And so Tolen goes about training Colin in the ways of lovin’.
The film is never un-entertaining, though it is fairly consistently somewhat entertaining. There are several scenes, though, which are absolutely inspired, especially the opening scene with all the women lined up outside Tolen’s door, and the part where they’re getting the bed from the landfill (is that the right word?) to Colin’s house.
Oddly enough, my favourite character is the one whose name I can’t remember for the life of me, played by Rita Tushingham. She’s just arrived in London and is looking for a clean, respectable place to live...and finds herself smack in the middle of Colin and Tolen. Tushingham, judging from this film alone, is a genius.
I don’t really have much to say about the movie. The score (written by John Barry, who you might know from a little thing called...oh, The James Bond Theme) is absolutely fantabulous, as are the man-on-the-street montages. There’s something, though, about rape jokes that kind of puts me off. Not quite sure what it is. Hm...
nb: The picture here is in colour, but the film is in black and white.