The Knack ...and How to Get It

The Knack …and How to Get It
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Richard Lester
Produced by	Oscar Lewenstein
Written by	Charles Wood
Starring	Rita Tushingham Ray Brooks Michael Crawford Donal Donnelly
Music by	John Barry
Cinematography	David Watkin
Edited by	Antony Gibbs
Production company	Woodfall Film Productions
Distributed by	United Artists Corporation
Release dates	3 June 1965 (1965-06-03)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$364,000^[1]^[2]
Box office	$2.5 million (US)^[1]

The Knack …and How to Get It is a 1965 British comedy film directed by Richard Lester based on the play by Ann Jellicoe. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival^[3] and was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival. It received the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.

Plot

The film depicts the sexual competition among three roommates — the aggressive, womanizing drummer Tolen (Ray Brooks), the shy, paranoid schoolteacher Colin (Michael Crawford), and the artist Tom (Donal Donnelly) — when a young woman from out of town, Nancy (Rita Tushingham), enters their London world.

Cast

Rita Tushingham as Nancy Jones
Ray Brooks as Tolen
Michael Crawford as Colin
Donal Donnelly as Tom
William Dexter as Dress Shop Owner
Charles Dyer as Man in Photo Booth
Margot Thomas as Female Teacher
John Bluthal as Angry Father
Helen Lennox as Girl in Photo Booth
Wensley Pithey as Teacher
Edgar Wreford as Man in Phone Booth
Frank Sieman as Surveyor
Bruce Lacey as Surveyor's Assistant
George Chisholm as Left Luggage Porter
Peter Copley as Picture Owner
Timothy Bateson as Junkyard Owner
Dandy Nichols as Tom's Landlady
Wanda Ventham as Gym Mistress
Julian Holloway as Guardsman
Ken Farrington as Guardsman

History and reputation

Making the film immediately after working with The Beatles on A Hard Day's Night and just before Help!, Lester made major changes to the play, adding his own touch through direct address, unexpected oddly-edited sequences, humorous subtitles, and a Greek chorus of disapproving members of "the older generation." Talking about the film in the 1980s, actor Ray Brooks said:

“

He’s a very visual man...They reckon that you could take any frame from Help, The Knack, and A Hard Day’s Night and you could put it on the cover of Time/Life. Everything was so beautifully shot."^[4]

”

Lester himself makes a brief cameo as an annoyed bystander. John Barry contributed the jazzy score, which features a memorable organ solo by Alan Haven. Jane Birkin, Charlotte Rampling, and Jacqueline Bisset all made their first cinematic appearances in the film as extras, together with Top of the Pops disc girl Samantha Juste.

References

1 2 Michael Deeley, Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies, Pegasus Books, 2009 p 31
↑ Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p. 245
↑ "Festival de Cannes: The Knack …and How to Get It". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
↑ Ray Brooks interview by Chris Hunt

External links

Films directed by Richard Lester

The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1960)
It's Trad, Dad! (1962)
The Mouse on the Moon (1963)
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
The Knack …and How to Get It (1965)
Help! (1965)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
How I Won the War (1967)
Petulia (1968)
The Bed-Sitting Room (1969)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Juggernaut (1974)
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Royal Flash (1975)
Robin and Marian (1976)
The Ritz (1976)
Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979)
Cuba (1979)
Superman II (1980)
Superman III (1983)
Finders Keepers (1984)
The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
Get Back (1991)

Palme d'Or winning films

1930s 1940s	Union Pacific – Cecil B. DeMille (1939) Iris and the Lieutenant – Alf Sjöberg (1946) The Lost Weekend – Billy Wilder (1946) The Red Meadows – Bodil Ipsen and Lau Lauritzen, Jr. (1946) Brief Encounter – David Lean (1946) María Candelaria – Emilio Fernández (1946) Neecha Nagar – Chetan Anand (1946) The Turning Point – Fridrikh Ermler (1946) La Symphonie Pastorale – Jean Delannoy (1946) The Last Chance – Leopold Lindtberg (1946) Men Without Wings – František Čáp (1946) Rome, Open City – Roberto Rossellini (1946) The Third Man – Carol Reed (1949)

1950s	Miss Julie – Alf Sjöberg (1951) Miracle in Milan – Vittorio De Sica (1951) The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice – Orson Welles (1952) Two Cents Worth of Hope – Renato Castellani (1952) The Wages of Fear – Henri-Georges Clouzot (1953) Gate of Hell – Teinosuke Kinugasa (1954) Marty – Delbert Mann (1955) The Silent World – Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle (1956) Friendly Persuasion – William Wyler (1957) The Cranes Are Flying – Mikhail Kalatozov (1958) Black Orpheus – Marcel Camus (1959)

1960s	La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini (1960) The Long Absence – Henri Colpi (1961) Viridiana – Luis Buñuel (1961) O Pagador de Promessas – Anselmo Duarte (1962) The Leopard – Luchino Visconti (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Jacques Demy (1964) The Knack ...and How to Get It – Richard Lester (1965) A Man and a Woman – Claude Lelouch (1966) The Birds, the Bees and the Italians – Pietro Germi (1966) Blowup – Michelangelo Antonioni (1967) if.... – Lindsay Anderson (1969)

1970s	MASH – Robert Altman (1970) The Go-Between – Joseph Losey (1971) The Working Class Goes to Heaven – Elio Petri (1972) The Mattei Affair – Francesco Rosi (1972) The Hireling – Alan Bridges (1973) Scarecrow – Jerry Schatzberg (1973) The Conversation – Francis Ford Coppola (1974) Chronicle of the Years of Fire – Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (1975) Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese (1976) Padre Padrone – Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1977) The Tree of Wooden Clogs – Ermanno Olmi (1978) Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola (1979) The Tin Drum – Volker Schlöndorff (1979)

1980s	All That Jazz – Bob Fosse (1980) Kagemusha – Akira Kurosawa (1980) Man of Iron – Andrzej Wajda (1981) Missing – Costa-Gavras (1982) Yol – Yılmaz Güney and Şerif Gören (1982) The Ballad of Narayama – Shohei Imamura (1983) Paris, Texas – Wim Wenders (1984) When Father Was Away on Business – Emir Kusturica (1985) The Mission – Roland Joffé (1986) Under the Sun of Satan – Maurice Pialat (1987) Pelle the Conqueror – Bille August (1988) Sex, Lies, and Videotape – Steven Soderbergh (1989)

1990s	Wild at Heart – David Lynch (1990) Barton Fink – Coen brothers (1991) The Best Intentions – Bille August (1992) Farewell My Concubine – Chen Kaige (1993) The Piano – Jane Campion (1993) Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino (1994) Underground – Emir Kusturica (1995) Secrets & Lies – Mike Leigh (1996) Taste of Cherry – Abbas Kiarostami (1997) The Eel – Shohei Imamura (1997) Eternity and a Day – Theodoros Angelopoulos (1998) Rosetta – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (1999)

2000s	Dancer in the Dark – Lars von Trier (2000) The Son's Room – Nanni Moretti (2001) The Pianist – Roman Polanski (2002) Elephant – Gus Van Sant (2003) Fahrenheit 9/11 – Michael Moore (2004) The Child – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (2005) The Wind That Shakes the Barley – Ken Loach (2006) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – Cristian Mungiu (2007) The Class – Laurent Cantet (2008) The White Ribbon – Michael Haneke (2009)

2010s	Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2010) The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick (2011) Amour – Michael Haneke (2012) Blue Is the Warmest Colour – Abdellatif Kechiche (with actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) (2013) Winter Sleep – Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014) Dheepan – Jacques Audiard (2015)

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