The Knack ...and How to Get It

Colin is a nervous schoolteacher working in London, observing rather than participating in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. He has little personal sexual experience and wishes to gain "the knack" of how to seduce women. He turns to his friend and tenant, a confident womaniser known only by his surname, Tolen. Tolen gives him unhelpful advice to consume more protein and use intuition, acknowledging that intuition is not something that can be completely learned. He advocates the importance of dominating women and suggests that Colin should let another friend move into Colin's spare room, and they could "share" women.

Colin boards the front door shut. Tom, who is passing, takes up occupation of the vacant room. He is obsessed with painting everything white, including the windowpanes. Due to the blocked door, Tolen now brings his women in through the window. Colin swaps his single bed for a fancy old double-wrought iron bed that he finds in a scrapyard with Tom. Nancy meets Colin at the scrapyard. Nancy is an inexperienced and shy young woman who has arrived in London from out of town and is searching for the YWCA. She stops by a clothing store and is won over by the flattery of the clerk until she overhears him repeating the same words to every female customer.

From the scrapyard, the three take the bed on a complex and zany journey back to the house. This includes parking it at a parking meter, moving it on a car transporter, floating it along the River Thames, and carrying it down the steps of the Royal Albert Hall.

In a public space, Tolen sexually assaults Nancy, who at first is silent and then faints. When she wakes up, she claims she was raped, though this was not the case. Tolen, Colin, and Tom are unable to restrain her from loudly repeating the allegations or puncturing the tyres of Tolen's motorcycle. She runs back to the house, where she throws Tolen's records out of the window and strips naked. The men become convinced her rape allegations reflect a rape fantasy and urge Tolen to have sex with her. When Nancy emerges from the room wearing only a robe, she instead expresses more attraction to Colin, and he returns her interest. The two begin living together.

{{castlist|

• Michael Crawford as Colin
• Rita Tushingham as Nancy Jones
• Ray Brooks as Tolen
• 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 and Kenneth Farrington as Guardsmen
• Jane Birkin as Motorbike Girl
• Jacqueline Bisset as Sweater Girl
• Charlotte Rampling as Water Skier
• Lucille Soong as Girl in Sauna

}}

After seeing Ann Jellicoe's play The Knack, the producers envisioned a film adaptation. They offered the position of director to Lindsay Anderson, who refused.{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/84070 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121108052621/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/84070%7C0/The-Knack-And-How-To-Get-It.html |url-status=live |archive-date=8 November 2012 |title=The Knack ...and How to Get It |last=Steiner |first=Richard |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=Turner Classic Movies}}

Having worked with The Beatles on A Hard Day's Night, Lester was another candidate for director, and agreed to take the position. 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."{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} Filming took place in a few weeks in November and early December 1964, and Lester employed television advertising techniques. Talking about the film in the 1980s, actor Ray Brooks said: {{cquote|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."[http://www.chrishunt.biz/feature24.html Ray Brooks interview] by Chris Hunt}}

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.

In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther positively reviewed it as "delightfully mobile" and a "frenziedly running, jumping picture".{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9505EEDA1F30E033A25753C3A9609C946491D6CF |title=Screen: 'The Knack' Opens at Plaza:Director Gives Pace to Off-Beat Story |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |date=30 June 1965 |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=The New York Times}} Variety praised the performances, citing Rita Tushingham as perfect in her role.{{Cite web|url=https://variety.com/1964/film/reviews/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it-1200420747/ |title=Review: 'The Knack … And How to Get It' |last=Staff |date=31 December 1964 |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=Variety}}

The film has fared less well on reappraisal. In 2001, the Wallflower Critical Guide noted the creativity in cinematography and editing, but said it disrupted the storytelling.{{cite book |editor1=Yoram Allon |editor2=Del Cullen |editor3=Hannah Patterson |title=Contemporary British and Irish Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide |publisher=Wallflower Press |date=2001 |isbn=1903364213 |page=199}}

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked it the 49th best film to win the Palme d'Or (out of the 69 films to win up to that point), stating it "hasn't aged well" but the setting was a great asset.{{Cite web|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/cannes-palme-dor-winners-ranked-891143/item/best-intentions-palme-dor-winners-891108 |title=Cannes: All the Palme d'Or Winners, Ranked |last=Staff |date=10 May 2016 |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=The Hollywood Reporter}}

In 2020, as part of a profile of Tushingham, Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian called the film "painful to watch", citing "the levity with which the film treats rape, not to mention Nancy's weird hysteria, is bound to make modern audiences a little queasy."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/28/rita-tushingham-interview-taste-of-honey-shock-60s |title=Rita Tushingham on life after A Taste of Honey |last=Jeffries |first=Stuart |date=28 January 2020 |access-date=4 January 2024 |work=The Guardian}}

The film was entered into competition at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival,{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2888/year/1965.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119093130/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2888/year/1965.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 January 2012 |title=Festival de Cannes: The Knack ...and How to Get It |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=festival-cannes.com}} where it won the Palme d'Or.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/may/11/cannes-film-2011-award-winners-palme-dor |title=Cannes 2011: all the Palme d'Or winners |date=May 2011 |access-date=7 June 2017 |work=The Guardian}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|id=0059362|title=The Knack …and How to Get It}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|knackand_how_to_get_it}}

{{Richard Lester}}

{{Palme d'Or 1960-1979}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Knack And How To Get It, The}}

Category:1965 films

Category:1965 romantic comedy films

Category:1960s sex comedy films

Category:British black-and-white films

Category:British romantic comedy films

Category:British sex comedy films

Category:Films about casual sex

Category:Films directed by Richard Lester

Category:Films scored by John Barry (composer)

Category:Films set in London

Category:Palme d'Or winners

Category:1960s English-language films

Category:1960s British films

Category:English-language sex comedy films

Category:English-language romantic comedy films