User reviews

A steady stream of very attractive and nearly identical manikins come to life and march starry-eyed around the block and up the stairs to a flat where they briefly meet the object of their desire before dutifully signing his guest book on the way out. The man they came to see is the suave Lothario who will try to mentor the socially awkward teacher living downstairs in the "knack" of seducing women. As so often happens in situations like this, they will eventually end up competing for the affections of the same intriguing ingénue.

This may sound like an overused cliché likely to result in a formulaic romantic comedy, but director Richard Lester gives us something very different as he presents the story through a combination of exaggerated caricatures, fantasy sequences and zany metaphors. The result is that we are not so much interested in the details of the story as we are in the fun we have reaching the inevitable conclusion and the social commentary we encounter along the way.

Created in 1965, Lester makes a hefty contribution to the creation of a frenetic visual style of comedy which will be imitated with great commercial success throughout the rest of the decade (think "Laugh-In"). With its mod styling, rapid-fire editing, non sequiturs and wacky antics, Lester effectively uses this style to provide some wickedly clever parody of early 1960s sexism, conformity and consumerism.

The film is unfortunately not without some serious flaws. The comic style which may have seemed fresh and exciting at the time has not aged well. The good-natured mood of the film robs the social commentary of any punch or staying power, as does the failure to integrate it into a unifying framework. Also, the four main characters may be wonderfully portrayed with excellent comic acting, but only one of them is scripted such that he ever becomes human enough for us to care what happens to him, something which is essential in a story that is entirely about the relationships between the main characters.

One may find this to be a very enjoyable and memorable film in spite of these flaws, but it clearly requires that you recognize how to accept what it attempts to offer rather than criticizing it for what it doesn't deliver. I'd also think that it's a valuable film for anyone interested in the 1960s mass media image of swinging London and in the trends influencing popular entertainment during that time period.

The Knack is a comedy that is wildly exuberant in its editing style, sort of like Lester came out of a marathon of Godard movies from the period but on a bunch of pop rocks or some other candy confection, and he and his editor Anthony Gibbs (who was more comfortable with the 'Kitchen Sink' type movies than something like Hard Days Night, just look at his credits to see his name attached to nearly all the major titles) decided to go wild. Sometimes this works for the sake of the energy and decidedly... uncertain, going-in-many-directions-not-settled nature of the main character Colin (Michael Crawford), and sometimes it doesn't.

Where it doesn't work for certain are the cut-always, almost in a strange, semi-satirical but documentary style where older people comment on these young people, whether it's Crawford or Rita Tushingham's character Nancy, who has only one real goal for the most part which is to find the YMCA in town, and they say things like "Mods and rockers" or "why in my day..." and things like that. I get what Lester was going for, that we have these outside perspectives almost as a commentary *on them*, but those little bits (sprinkled throughout the movie) are dated. Where the movie does still work is in creating a genuinely unsettling tone, and this creates a lot of moments of unexpected comedy - at times this is really a story about guys arguing over space in a flat and moving things around, bordering, if it were in lessor hands or those of today, like a sitcom, and then... it's also a story of toxic masculinity as a part of it.

Another thing about looking at historical context - a year later, a version of the roommate/sorta-friend Tolen's type would appear as the "anti-hero(ish)" persona of Michael Caine's Alfie. But where Caine is an actor who can sort of make you feel if not much sympathy or empathy then at least some human understanding to his character (also, he's the lead, so what can you do but go for the ride with him), Ray Brooks is positively slimy as this guy who is somehow going to show Colin how to "get the Knack", which means how to get women. Somehow this is also communicated earlier, without much dialog needed, when Colin, as the school-teacher he is, for a moment gets distracted along with the other kids as they ogle at the girls outside (though he snaps out of it to try and be a disciplinarian... which he's bad at).

But anyway, Brooks at first comes off seeming like the "cool" playboy type, or, more accurately (and I have to think Lester meant this as an intentional homage), Marcello Mastroianni out of 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita (he even at one point does what seems like a "mock" whipping when Colin is playing around with Nancy... and then it doesn't seem like playing around anymore). Yet there's another level of commentary going on here; a version of this kind of movie could feasibly even show up many years after this as like, say, a college comedy or even a romantic comedy (an edgier one, but still). Watch as Brooks corners Tushingham in that room - his body language, his demeanor (does he *ever* genuinely smile, is the actor's question and choice he goes for, and its effective), it all leads to the question of being a sexual predator; how he got the "birds" he's had before one may question by this point - did he always have "the Knack", or did some of these girls not care so much if he had the hair or suit or Marcello glasses of whatever?

The point is, this leads to the last stretch of the movie, which becomes... kind of a very odd joke about rape. Of course Nancy isn't really raped, not in the way we think as technically speaking.... but isn't it all the same the kind of 'rape' or sexual assault and language that has made things as of late in this country so f***ed up? It was impossible not to think about that, and yet Lester finds... humor in this(?)

I think the key is that he goes all out about it - she wakes up after fainting from being so provoked (and yes, there *is* that element, let's not ever leave Tolen off the hook here, creep he is), and then proceeds to say 'RAPE!' over and over again (in one belly-laugh moment she goes up to a random house, knocks, the person answers, Rita says 'rape', and the old woman at the door says dead-pan, 'no thanks.'). It's not the rape that is funny, but the public's reactions to it, how it IS a chaotic and horrible thing in reality, but if it didn't actually happen... well, can it still be funny? I wonder what most people coming to this fresh would think about how Lester treats this material and these characters.

It's a strange combination since it's a light-hearted affair - the highlight of the film involves when Colin and Tom, the other (new) roommate, first meet Nancy while they're collecting a bed frame, and have to move it themselves, on foot, across the city, and this scored to a jubilant, jazzy, wonderful and even happy kind of music by John Barry - but it deals in real hurt and pain that is caused by men who won't take bloody no for an answer. It's not something Lester is out to solve (I have no idea how it was in the play this was based on), however he does find a cinematic grammar that breaks apart how a mind thinks in moments that rattle the consciousness or when one's mind wanders and so on. It's a brash experiment that doesn't hold up as well as Lester's Beatles films, but it's fun and original while it lasts, which is at a fairly brisk 82 minutes.

'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.

Attention, All You Carnally-Curious Viewers! - If you want the "knack" and seriously wanna know "how to get it" - Then steer clear of this quirky, off-the-wall, 1965, comedy - 'Cause it's sure to leave your head spinning, as you find yourself even more clueless than you already are.

If nothing else - "The Knack" (directed by American film-maker, Richard Lester) is (movie-wise) historically significant in that it is sandwiched in between 2 of Lester's more notable pictures - "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", which, of course, starred the Beatles.

Even though "The Knack" (which was set in London and filmed in b&w) is a pretty silly and scatterbrained tale about the lustful pursuit for sexual conquests - It certainly did have its interesting and entertaining moments.

And, yes - With "The Knack" now being 52 years old - It is, indeed, dated - But still definitely worth a view. Yet - With that said - I do caution you, that its decidedly-eccentric brand of humour isn't gonna appeal to everyone.

The Knack emerges as a serious contender as the film which best defines and captures the essence of the sixties. As a product of its age, it convincingly portrays an image of 'swinging London' that so dominated the media at that time. It is an enduring image, which has long since seeped into our collective consciousness.

Today, The Knack appears, at best, to be an attempt at understanding the changing moral landscape that was being radically redrawn during this era. As a piece of contemporary film making, it manages to capture the spirit of that age perfectly. What it doesn't necessarily do is make sense of it all. The 1960s was, after all, a period of rapid social and political change - an age of cold war tension, supersonic invention and lunar landing pretensions, combined with increasing freedom for teenagers, both in terms of sex and spending power.

The quartet of principal actors, Crawford, Tushingham, Brooks & Donnelly all give bravura performances. Richard Lester's direction was exemplary; indeed, he has probably not made a better film since those heady days. The locations, featuring some rather dingy-looking parts of the capital, look all the more so thanks to the decision to film in monochrome. This was particular brave considering the colourful times the film was depicting. The one ingredient which most of all created the sense of playfulness indicative of the film was John Barry's wonderfully mischievous jazz-tinged pop score. One cannot imagine the film without it, which is the highest compliment one can pay to a film soundtrack.

There is no doubt that The Knack was and remains a stylish movie, albeit rooted in its time. No viewer can fail to date its origin correctly ... yet that's precisely what makes this celluloid time-capsule such a fascinating viewing experience. It exists as the archetypal mid-sixties art-house movie, which, like the decade in which it was written, took risks, dared to be different, and, if it didn't always succeed, sure as hell made an impression.

Cool and sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks) has a monopoly on womanizing - with a long list of conquests to prove it - while the naive and awkward Colin (Michael Crawford) desperately wants a piece of it...

This is very strange. We start with a creepy womanizer and a man who looks up to him. This seems about right for the 1960s, and still comes off as sleazy without ever having any nudity. Well done, Richard Lester.

But then it takes a turn where the creepy guy gets even creepier and is accused of rape. While his methods are very much putting people under duress, the film decides to make a joke of rape rather than take any of it seriously. I don't know how to feel about any of this. Is anyone in this film worth looking up to?

Although some people like to call "The Knack" one of the best comedies of the sixties I don't agree with them. It's just a very silly, unorganized, hectic and boring farce about four beatniks running around and talking weird nonsense all the time. Especially the ugly duckling Rita Tushingham is getting on your nerves pretty soon.

If people are doing things like that in a 1960's movie and are reading quotations from Karl Marx or a Mao bible, it's probably a Jean-Luc Godard film. If you leave away Marx and Mao and add hundreds of stupid jokes in a row that are all falling flat, it's probably a Richard Lester movie.

"The Knack" is very much like Lester's Beatles movies - great music throughout, this time provided by a rousing John Barry score with a great theme tune, but no script, bad acting and a big bore... in Germany we would call that "beknackt" (sic!) - simply stupid!

If you are looking for entertaining British movies from and about the sixties, there are much better ones. Check out Antonioni's "Blow-up", the James Bond movies and it's parodies like "Casino Royale" or the Harry Palmer films, "The Thomas Crown Affair" or the kitchen sink dramas of the early sixties like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "Wild Honey" or "Four in the Morning". Or take "Beat Girl", a rather unknown 1960's mod-flick with another great Barry score.

"The Knack" (from 1965) is definitely a film whose humor isn't gonna appeal to everyone. But, with that said - I found "The Knack" (and its quirky comedy) to be a fairly entertaining view (for the most part).

Directed by Richard Lester - I think that this picture is historically relevant as it was filmed in between Lester's 2 other films, "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" which, of course, were vehicles for promoting the Beatles.

This film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but no surprise...it's the kind of "transgressional" film that critics love, those films that break taboos and mock tradition. (That mockery is very clear in "The Knack." One of the recurring narrative devices is using commentary by "old people" on the horrible behavior of the young. Many of these comments contain "unwitting" double entendres: oh, how clever we script-writers are!)

It's a flimsy plot about a man about town who can have any woman he wants (indeed, they line up outside his flat), and his downstairs neighbor, a naïve teacher who'd like to learn how to get women to like him. It's told in Lester's early style, with loads of quick cuts, odd angles, mannered dialog, etc. A new woman arrives on the scene and a sort of competition ensues for her "favors." The plot advances at a sluggish pace, bogged down by long set pieces, including a silly slapstick sequence in which three characters move a huge iron bed frame from a junkyard to the flat. Near the end, the suave ladykiller almost has his way with the girl, but she goes into a state of psychological shock in which she imagines she has been raped. This is actually played for COMEDY, and the word "rape" is used about 100 times in a painful denouement. Oh, how transgressive we film-makers are!

THE KNACK is one of those films that tried so hard to be hip and contemporary that today, it's almost impossible to watch without cringing. John Barry's score adds even more "nails-on-the-blackboard" ambiance with its relentless, shrill pop sounds. I'm sure this was all very shocking at the time, which seems to have been the main idea behind this regrettable relic from the swinging 60s.

Reviewers fell all over themselves to praise this film when it came out. I personally tend to be a sucker for good, wild British comedy. I wanted to believe the reviews.

Why did they lie to me?!? Oh, have no doubt that at the time this was wild and crazy and totally unlike just about anything out there. I can see that in the film and I can also see the whole generation gap thing playing itself out in there as well. I see all that was said to be in there, except for great performances and the wacky comedy.

I shall not try to comment on story or plot. This film doesn't even pretend that those elements matter, and they certainly don't if you should happen to see this movie. You're there for the "event" of the film itself. Other than Rita Tushingham's heavenly eyes and lips, there IS no "event" worth hanging around to see.

This is one of those films that should be viewed only in the context of its place in film history. It fails to survive the passage of time on its own merits. It is merely an interesting curiosity from the 60s.

On another, short note, the soundtrack is incredible. It makes the film worth sitting through.

This is listed as a UK sex comedy and as such is in the same bag as films like The Confessions Of A.... series. This is strange as its nothing like the UK sex comedies which are common to the genre.

The first reason why that this almost has the feel of a French new movie. It doesn't really feel that British, due to the camera work, jazz score and frankly very strange dialogue. This film would not seem out of place with a French language audio track and English subtitles.

The overall mood of the film is "1960's whacky". It is very surreal at times and some scenes add little to the narrative or make any real sense.

The story is basically about a teacher played by Crawford who has zero draw for the ladies, but he is friends with a Chelsea booted, slim suit wearing and scooter riding bloke who is. He has "the knack" for pulling birds. Crawfords' character attempts to learn the knack from his friend but a newly arrived flatmate and girl throw all this into chaos.

It is an enjoyable film if you can stand the surreal aspects and cope with the odd dialogue, The cinematography is outstanding and even the wardrobe shows that people were simply better dressed in those days.

The ending however does take a turn for the odd with the R word being flung around willy nilly. Its a fairly straightforward rom-com but with some 1960's flourishes you will either love or hate. Its clear to see why it has a BluRay release.

HUGE brit star Rita Tushingham and her giant, round eyes started acting around age twenty. and The Knack was only her fifth film! here, she's Nancy, looking for a place to stay. it WAS 1965, so we're at the very beginning of the hippy-dippy trippy days. short skirts, expressing yourself. and we see that in the first five minutes, even before we see Rita. Michael Crawford is Colin, a teacher, and asks his friends how to be more of a lady's man. they decide to "share" the women they get. and they've decided that the real status is a bigger "bed". not too symbolic. lots of quick banter. disapproval from the older folks. captions showing on the screen. scenes of 1965 London. Donal Donnelly is chatty Tom. and the boys have a quiet duel over Nancy. Tolen is more determined, but can he close the deal? First, uncredited role for jacqueline bissett, second for charlotte rampling. and yes, the rock group Knack was actually named after this film. directed by Richard Lester. worked with Peter Sellers. and the Beatles. nominated for the BAFTA for this one. Knack gets a bit repetitive near the end...Nancy goes over the edge, and threatens the boys for something they didn't do. kind of goes over the top for new, hippy effect, but it would have been better if they had just stuck to the plain story and carried on.

Dick Lester really owes his career to the Beatles. I can't think of a single thing he's done without them that has any lasting entertainment value; The Knack is another enterprise in that vein. Lester, a one-time director of TV commercials, uses about the same technique in his features, a lot of trick camera work, blitzkrieg editing, curt, rapid-fire "dialogue" which is just a lot of clipped phrases passed off as conversation. The net effect is the same in both cases, Lester is trying to sell us the images- the plot, characters, etc. are all subservient to the next image or phrase Lester wants to run up the flagpole, ultimately each shot, each composition, each gesture, each catchphrase, has a sly life unto itself, and, when slapped together, really doesn't add up to much.

The alleged plot of this sorry thing is an awkward schoolteacher/landlord (Michael Crawford) trying to learn how to score with women from his worldly tenant (Ray Brooks). This plot never gets off the ground in any way, it just degenerates into a lot of funky, dyspeptic action and unfunny (and often unintelligible) dialogue. There is not one bit of business in the movie that could be construed as funny, nor a single line of dialogue. And it didn't surprise me to note that the screenplay was written by Charles Wood, who was responsible for the pathetic screenplay for The Beatles "Help!" Wood seems eternally to be marketing his work for The Beatles. It's certainly no accident that Rita Tushingham is cast in the picture as a dead ringer for Ringo Starr. When one sees Crawford, Brooks, Tushingham, and Donal Donnelly in the same shot, we are watching a Beatles' sketch, and it doesn't say much for the material when one suspects that it would play far better for them than it does for these professionally trained actors. The performances are negligible at best, hysteria-ridden and squeamish at worst.

People who compare this movie with "A Hard Day's Night" simply don't have a clue. HDN was intelligently written, with great characterization, and some memorable lines. Lester's so-called style was incidental to the proceedings. There is no joy in The Knack. No mirth, no verve. It is all technique. Dick Lester wants to bombard us with technique, miles and miles of it, until we are knocked flat by his sheer brilliance and wizardry. Unfortunately, clever technique does not a motion picture make. This movie plays like a ketchup commercial that won't end. It's not even silliness, it's an advertisement for silliness. That's how far removed Lester is to giving the audience anything resembling content. Complete and worthless garbage. 1/2 * out of 4

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."

I was too young to see this when it was released but it was a hot topic of conversation among teenage boys in 1965 but watching it now it's hard to understand what all the fuss was about. It was very daring in 1965 but its just like a Carry On film to 2022 audiences. It has to be watched by anyone interested in cult 1960s film but otherwise it can safely be given a miss.

Made in between his two Beatles films, this is Richard Lester's film adaptation of the hit U.K. play of the day. A sex comedy aimed at the youth audience it's very much a four-hander revolving around country-girl-come-to-the-city Rita Tushingham, gauche young teacher Michael Crawford, his lady-killer tenant Ray Brooks and flighty young Irishman Donal Donnelly.

Crawford's Colin imagines a coterie of beautiful girls hanging around Brooks's Tolen character's room upstairs and longs to be as confident as him around females. Also on their different ways to Colin's run-down flat are Tushingham's mildly rebellious but sexually repressed Nancy and Donnelly's mad painter Tom (literally a painter not an artist, he just wants to paint over anything brown).

To a usually jeering background chorus of the censorious older generation, the four intermingle in ever more absurdist situations. The first of these occurs when Colin, with Tom, tries to take home an old four poster bed collected at a scrap heap (because he thinks having a double bed will solve his problems with the ladies) they pick up Nancy on the way and literally ride it through the streets and even on water back to his flat, where of course they can't manage to get it up the stairs and into his room.

There they encounter the handsome, suited and booted, super-smooth Tolen who immediately starts to put the moves on the mousy Nancy initially for Tom's benefit but when he later tries to lead her upstairs himself, she throws a fit, strips naked, locks herself in the room and then for the last fifteen minutes or so runs out into the street to a public park screaming rape to all and sundry.

It's really all very haphazard and strange, the stranger, at least to me, for being written by a woman. The references to rape I found distasteful and difficult to excuse even allowing for the swinging times in which the film was made and ultimately I couldn't clearly see the point or points it was trying to make. Generation gap, sexual permissiveness, the treatment of women, masculinity mores, well maybe, but with the unnatural dialogue and unfunny slapstick situations depicted I never once caught on to the message, rhythm or attempted humour of the piece.

Crawford frequently exhibits the physical comedy and child-like innocence for which he later became famous on TV in the 70's, Tushingham is Sphinx-like in her passivity, Donnelly is plain eccentric with his disjointed conversation about lions, paint and tea and Brooks projects a glib and self-confident persona until exposed for the fraud he is but all mixed together with Lester's trick-bag of eccentric camera-work with sped-up, backwards-running, subtitled, you-name-it sequences, I was just confused and irritated to the point of willing it to finish.

Perhaps it served as a rallying point for sexual freedom or youthful expression back in the heady days of 1965, but for me, it all looked very staged, awkward and dated.

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.

The range of emotions in these reviews is fascinating. I am not usually a fan of art deco movies with no real point. Blow-Up, for example. However, something about this one reeled me in just enough to finish it. I was born in '66 and have a romantic feeling for the '60s, an era I just missed being part of. Always wish I had been born around '50. The movie gives you a great feeling for being young and British, even if it is not truly representative, as another reviewer wrote. Movies are not often intended to be representative.

The score is compelling, as is the zaniness. If you have seen movies of this genre (which I call 'pointless'), and recognize it early on, you have a decision as to whether you are going to watch just for the scenery. I recognized it and followed through to relatively satisfying results. At least, I don't feel that I wasted my time, unlike Blow-Up.

If you are willing to spend 85 minutes to get a feeling of mid-60s youth in Britain and have a few laughs, this movie is for you Just don't expect a conclusion that pulls it all together.

I don't want to write much on this movie, I've already wasted enough time watching it. It certainly falls into the category of films your lucky to finish watching and if you do you wont again. Absolute rubbish, boring, pretentious and it made me want to kick the TV. I cant help but wonder who these folks are that have rated it so highly and have went on about its artistic merit, can we have seen the same film? do me a favour, watch it and if you don't feel like stamping on this DVD after watching it check your pulse, you may be brain dead.

Avoid like the plague, though given the choice I'd rather kiss a rat with the black death any day then sit through "The Knack" again