The Knack...And How To Get It (1965) On DVD

Cool and sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks) has a monopoly on womanizing -- with a long line of conquests to prove it -- while the naive and awkward Colin (Michael Crawford) desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl (Rita Tushingham), it's not long before the self-assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war, or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?

Tolen (Ray Brooks) has it. Colin (Michael Crawford) doesn't. "It" is the knack for getting women into bed. After obtaining lessons from the master, Colin buys a bed big enough for his conquests. This leads Colin and his friend Tom (Donal Donnelly) to Nancy (Rita Tushingham), an attractive traveler. The boys vie for her affections, but when she meets Tolen, she faints, overcome by his charm. Nancy awakens thinking she has been raped and points her finger at the hapless Colin.

As films age they are commonly seen as "tame by today's standards." This is not the case with this outrageously loose 1965 portrait of Swinging London. A revolutionary film, this amoral slapstick combined the rapid-fire-gag approach used by director Richard Lester in his previous work with the Beatles (A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, HELP!) with the awareness of technique popularized by the French New Wave. The style of filmmaking perfectly captures the time period and was also highly influential to the film school generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s. John Barry's playful score fusing jazz and pop sets the frenetic pace. Though purely cinematic, the film is based on a popular play by Ann Jellicoe.