**Contains spoilers, but you'll rarely see a review of this film which doesn't.**
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I went to London, and I tried to book myself in at the YWCA ...
but instead ended up meeting Frank Spencer, Dated Stereotype Daft As A Brush Irishman and their pickup artist pal, in a curious genuinely amusing comedy / shocklingly dated historical document, backed by a Greek chorus of biddies at bus stops who complain about young people and modern times.

The Knack has a pretty appalling reputation these days, but 80% of it is rather funny if you like a bit of the old innuendo.

It's one of the archetypal Swinging London films, but after the event it seems to be mocking the…

Richard Lester's Palme D'Or winning film is certainly a film of its time and that is a good and bad thing. Endlessly stylish with lovely B&W cinematography, fantastic simple production design and an irreverent tone which meshes well with the swinging 60's setting depicting a world of young people who live for the moment and older people who stand there watching, complaining but secretly wishing they were a part of it.

Things come undone looking at it now with the blatant misogyny of it all though as Michael Crawford's sadsack teacher gets in over his head when Ray Brooks' (the narrator of King Rollo!) smooth operator alternately tries to help him with women and come onto Rita Tushingham's naive young…

I was obsessed with this as an undergrad, so I can't really be objective. I don't care that some of the gags aren't particularly funny, as even the bum ones (the "Sir, you're wanted on the other fern" one is a real low, even by the standards of bad puns) add to the air of non-stop, jazzed-up playfulness. I would seriously classify Richard Lester in the pantheon of comic directors alongside Jacques Tati and (probably, need to see more) Pierre Étaix. I'm really stumped on finding a more cinematic adaptation of a play, in part because Lester and scribe Charles Wood blow up the source. (Lester did the same thing to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the…

A real slice of 1960s British cinema directed by an American who was (in my mind) responsible for some of the most visually interesting films of that decade.

Richard 'Dick' Lester the man who directed The Beatles in two films, John Lennon in another before unleashing the magnificent, glorious, surreal, absurd 'The Bed Sitting Room' all by 1969. It wasn't until I saw this last night that I realised Dick Lester is one of my favourite directors.

The Knack captures Britain at a time where there was a massive change underway. Lester uses the voices of the older generation to narrate what is happening on screen in a 'that would never happen in my day' kind of way. Its very…

I was obsessed with this as an undergrad, so I can't really be objective. I don't care that some of the gags aren't particularly funny, as even the bum ones (the "Sir, you're wanted on the other fern" one is a real low, even by the standards of bad puns) add to the air of non-stop, jazzed-up playfulness. I would seriously classify Richard Lester in the pantheon of comic directors alongside Jacques Tati and (probably, need to see more) Pierre Étaix. I'm really stumped on finding a more cinematic adaptation of a play, in part because Lester and scribe Charles Wood blow up the source. (Lester did the same thing to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the…

**Contains spoilers, but you'll rarely see a review of this film which doesn't.**
----

I went to London, and I tried to book myself in at the YWCA ...
but instead ended up meeting Frank Spencer, Dated Stereotype Daft As A Brush Irishman and their pickup artist pal, in a curious genuinely amusing comedy / shocklingly dated historical document, backed by a Greek chorus of biddies at bus stops who complain about young people and modern times.

The Knack has a pretty appalling reputation these days, but 80% of it is rather funny if you like a bit of the old innuendo.

It's one of the archetypal Swinging London films, but after the event it seems to be mocking the…

This may be one of the most shocking movies I have ever seen in my life. It has the funny feel of films from Britian do from the 60s where they border on slap stick but the last 30 minutes shocked me quite a bit.
The basic story is about a guy who wants to be his womanizing friend because he wants to be part of the sexual liberation of the times and feels square compared to his his friends do he wants to learn from him meanwhile a girl gets in town and wants to find a place where she has no luck from the people that she meets and meanwhile the camera will show the disapproving adults who…