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'''''The Knack …and How to Get It''''' is a 1965 British comedy film directed by [[Richard Lester]] and based on the play by [[Ann Jellicoe]]. It won the ''[[Palme d'Or]]'' at the [[1965 Cannes Film Festival]] and the [[Grand Prix (Belgian Film Critics Association)|Grand Prix]] of the [[Belgian Film Critics Association]]. It was also in competition for the [[Golden Bear]] at the [[15th Berlin International Film Festival]].
==The Knack==
The "knack" is the skill, and particularly the special skill to do a certain task, i.e. "he's got the knack". The phrase was particularly popular in the 1960s. It does not pertain exclusively (or even particularly) to sexual skills.
==Plot==
Colin ([[Michael Crawford]]) 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": in this case tomeaning successfullya way to seduce women. He turns to a friend, a confident, womanizing drummer known only by his surname, Tolen. Tolen gives him unhelpful advice to consume more protein and use intuition, acknowledging intuition is not something that can be completely learned, and advocates the importance of [[sexual domination|domination]] of women. He (Tolen) then suggests that one of his mates "Rory McBride"Colin should takemove upinto thehis spare-room that Colin is looking to renthome, (aswhere Colinhe ownsand theanother home), where Colin canfriend "share" the women of both Tolen and Rory.
Colin boards the front door shut. The third flatmate, Tom, is obsessed with painting everything white... including the windowpanes. Due to the blocked door Tolen brings his girls in through the window. Colin swaps his single bed for a fancy old double wrought iron bed which he finds in a scrapyard with Tom. Nancy ([[Rita Tushingham]]) meets Colin at the scrapyard and they have a moment of connection when their eyes meet. Nancy is an inexperienced and shy young woman, one can say Colin's female counterpart; who has arrived to 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 so they can eat their lunch before moving it on a [[Car carrier trailer|car transporter]] and carrying it down the steps of the [[Royal Albert Hall]]. Back at the house, Nancy tries to help Colin and Tom maneuver the new "vast" bed up to Colin's bedroom but are having trouble because when Tom let the spare room, he moved all the furniture out into the main hall and left it all there. Tolen arrives back home to find the new flat-mate Tom and sees the new girl who clearly must be preyed upon since that is what having "The Knack" is all about, without realizing or caring, that Colin already likes her but as usual is shy. Tolen immediately puts the moves on new Nancy after Tom has used a game of "How to train a Lion" after a dust-up trying to move the new bed upstairs. Tolen gets aggressive with her trying to "teach" Colin how to get the Knack, but see what is really "going on" and as the camera zooms in for a close-up on Colin's eyes, the audience can see he is already feeling very protective of her. Nancy resists Tolen for a little while and even runs away frightened after he kisses her. When she returns, Tolen begins to fain an apology although she isn't aware that his placating her is all part of his "Knack" for winning girls to him. Eventually, she is won over and she leaves the house with him on his motorcycle and Tom urges Colin to go after to make sure she's all right. An iconic shot of Colin and Tom up on the top of an alleyway comes now as Tolen is chasing them both on his motorcycle before taking he and Nancy to a public park. She loses her hat during the pursuit and Colin scoops it up off the road to bring it back to her when they catch up.
▲Colin boards the front door shut. The third flatmate, Tom, is obsessed with painting everything white... including the windowpanes. Due to the blocked door Tolen brings his girls in through the window. Colin swaps his single bed for a fancy old double wrought iron bed which he finds in a scrapyard with Tom. Nancy ([[Rita Tushingham]]) meets Colin at the scrapyard and they have a moment of connection when their eyes meet. Nancy is an inexperienced and shy young woman , one can say Colin's female counterpart; who has arrived to 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.
In a public space, Tolen appears to sexually assaults Nancy, who at first is silent, then faints. When she wakes up, she begins claiming she was raped, but this was not the case. Tolen, Colin and Tom find themselves unable to restrain her from loudly repeating the allegations all over the neighborhood, or puncturing the tires of Tolen's motorcycle; after which she runs back to the residence, where she throws Tolen's records out of the window and strips naked inside his bedroom. The men become convinced her rape allegations reflect her own [[rape fantasy]] and urge Tolen to "go on to it since HE has The Knack. When Nancy emerges from the room wearing only her overcoat, she persists in her rape fantasy but shifts her focus from Tolen to Colin. With her new found power to frighten the men instead of herself being scared, she backs Colin and the other men back down the stairs and corners Colin in the kitchen where she says that "no girl would ever suspect LUST beneath the handsome exterior of the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed school-teacher lurks the heart of a beast lusting for the blood of young virgins." Colin looks shocked to know a girl thinks HE is handsome and she goes further to proclaim how lovely his hands are. He blushes when he asks her "Do I really?" Tom and Tolen then come down to the kitchen and see how Colin and Nancy are gazing at each other and Tom says that Colin has raped her. Shocked at the very idea, Tolen protests, and then Nancy states that "rugged and handsome with lovely hands" Colin did indeed rape her "marvelous-super" and the more she extolls Colin's own "Knack," the taller he stands proud to have the affection of just this one young woman, even with a ridiculous claim that she manages to make quite sweetly with her new affections for Colin. Tolen gets confused by all this and his expressions begin to indicate that perhaps his own mojo maintaining "the Knack" is slipping after hearing Nancy speak of Colin in this manner.
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 carrier trailer|car transporter]] and carrying it down the steps of the [[Royal Albert Hall]].
Tolen slips off to his engagement where he and Rory have booked the [[Royal Albert Hall]] in order to have a reunion with all the girlfriends of both men. When he arrives, Tolen discovers that all HIS girls have turned their affections to Rory. (The audience never sees Rory.) The ladies refuse to allow him inside and trample him underfoot. He arrives back home and asks Tom where Colin and Nancy are, both upstairs in his room sitting on his "vast" new bed. The two are still whispering new sweet-nothings to each other with Colin smoking a cigarette and his tie missing, collar now standing up straight, as if he and Nancy really had been physically intimate already but there is no indication of that. Colin says "It would be lovely to see you laugh" with a hand on her cheek.
In a public space, Tolen sexually assaults Nancy, who at first is silent then faints. When she wakes up, she begins [[False accusation of rape|claiming she was raped]], though this was not the case. Tolen, Colin and their friends find themselves unable to restrain her from loudly repeating the allegations, or puncturing the tyres of Tolen's motorcycle, and she runs back to the residence, where she throws Tolen's [[Gramophone record|records]] out of the window and strips naked. The men become convinced her rape allegations reflect [[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 the interest. The two begin to co-habitate.
The film ends with Tolen having totally lost The Knack, and with Nancy and Colin having an evening stroll hand in hand down, perfectly comfortable with each other, with Colin having acquired his own different kind of Knack.
==Cast==
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