“THE FINE ART OF SEDUCTION?”

By Raymond Benson

The winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival was a thoroughly “mod,” Swinging London-set comedy directed by rising star filmmaker Richard Lester, who was just coming off the huge success of helming the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night.

The Knack is directed in the same style as Hard Day’s, which borrowed heavily from the signature traits of the French New Wave—radical editing and jump cuts, handheld camerawork, on the street cinema verité, breaking the fourth wall, intentionally arty shots, and a relatively low budget… plus Lester’s trademark absurdist humor, surrealism, and a wacky British sensibility that he had exhibited ever since working with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan on such fare as The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1959).

Adapted by Charles Wood from a stage play by Ann Jellicoe, The Knack is a loosely-constructed stream of consciousness tale of Colin (Michael Crawford), a shy young man who is inexperienced with women and greatly desires “the knack” of seducing them the way his friend Tolen (Ray Brooks) can. Tolen is a handsome drummer and seems to have women (who all look like the type of model in the Twiggy years—mid-60s hip, mod, sexy) all around him. He’s a bit of a cad, though, and not a particularly nice guy. Colin and Tolen live with Tom (Donal Donnelly) in a London flat that serves as a grand central station for all these women. Meanwhile, Nancy (Rita Tushingham), an innocent newcomer to London, meets the trio. Colin sets his sights on her, but Tolen muscles in and attempts to exercise his alpha male prowess. What happens next is a cockeyed treatise on relationships in the context of this swinging lifestyle, all examined through the gaze of an op art lens. There is a combination of slapstick, pratfalls, wordplay, titillation, and, toward the end, a disturbing sequence (for today, that is) in which Nancy falsely—but symbolically—accuses Tolen of rape.

It’s a strange piece of work, something that is decidedly dated, but it’s important to judge cinema within the context of when it was released. At the time, The Knack was edgy, out of the box moviemaking. One will have to decide whether it works for today’s audience or not.

The one thing that does work—spectacularly—is John Barry’s jazzy score, one of his landmark 1960s efforts. There are a few dreamy pieces with strings and vibraphone that foreshadow his underwater scenes music in Thunderball, which was due to be released at the end of ’65.

And look for the faces of Charlotte Rampling, Jacqueline Bisset, and Jane Birkin among the extras of beautiful “birds,” as the English lads called them back in the day.

Kino Lorber’s new high definition restoration looks and sounds fine in all its widescreen, black and white glory (and this is a picture that is filmed in stark contrasting black and white!). Supplements include two “Trailers from Hell”—one on the film with Allan Arkush, and one on Lester’s 1969 picture, The Bed Sitting Room analyzed by fellow director John Landis, plus theatrical trailers for this and other Kino Lorber releases.

The Knack…and How to Get It is a relic of its time, a snapshot of a pop culture in flux during a significant period of innovation and experimentation.

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