The Knack

Rita Tushingham - Nancy Jones
Ray Brooks - Tolen
Michael Crawford - Colin
Donal Donnelly - Tom
John Bluthal - Father
Wensley Pithey - Teacher
Dandy Nichols - Landlady

Director Richard Lester's follow-up to the successful A Hard Day's Night was this inventive and energetic swinging London farce based on the stage play by Ann Jellicoe. The plot is little more than an excuse for a frenetic array of sexist one-liners, clipped dialogue, visual gags and jump cutting editing. Although very much a film of its time and a Palme d'Or winner, today The Knack appears sadly dated and embarrassingly misogynistic.

Cool and sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks) has a monopoly on womanizing - with a long line of conquests to his name, while the naive and awkward schoolteacher Colin (Michael Crawford), Tolen's landlord, desperately wants a piece of the action. When Colin goes to the dump to find a king size brass bed he meets doe-eyed country girl Nancy Jones (Rata Tushingham) and gradually falls in love on the journey back to his flat with the bed, but it’s not long before the self-assured fox, Tolen, moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and, war, or can Colin beat Tolen at his own game if armed with the knack?