The Illusion of Sex

Oh, that rubbish about the old dynamics between the sexes, it's just a playground to the kids in 1965's The Knack . . . and How to Get It. Director Richard Lester, who made The Beatles' Hard Day's Night and Help!, tries to see if his zany postmodernism is as effective with actors who aren't The Beatles. Not quite. But it's a fascinating document, based on a stage play by Ann Jellicoe, which sought to expose the typical male and female roles in sexual courtship as superficial things that mods and rockers have surely advanced, or will advance, beyond, with nothing but the merry pluck of postmodernism.

Lester's new fab four are Rita Tushingham, Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, and Donal Donnelly. Tushingham plays Nancy, an innocent girl just come to London who's trying to find the YWCA. Along the way, she stops to subvert the rhetoric of a sales clerk who tries to get her to buy a dress. The artificiality of the whole thing is shown up when another customer tries to buy Nancy's coat she's set down on a chair.

Meanwhile, Colin (Crawford) is at his wit's end, illustrated often by Lester with repeated footage of him saying the same line, running forwards and backwards on the stairs. He's a schoolteacher and a landlord. One of his tenants, Tolen (Ray Brooks), is an inveterate cad, trying to convince Colin his problem with women is he doesn't understand women like to be dominated. Tolen's success is illustrated when he leads one satisfied young woman outside only to almost instantly bring in another eager, beautiful prospect.

Rounding out the four is Tom (Donnelly), a new tenant and artist who has no sexual interest in women and pals with Nancy when she shows up. It seems like he's meant to be gay except he directly says he isn't when Tolen bucks screenwriting tradition and directly asks him, "Are you a homosexual?" I suspect Lester added this line himself, though, out of an obstinate refusal to admit the character was meant to be gay.

With Nancy in the mix, she becomes the subject for experimentation as Tolen seeks to prove his ideas to Colin. Nancy is dutifully frightened by and then submissive to Tolen and is mildly charmed but ultimately bored by Colin. On a superficial level. They all wear it so thinly as they march around London in sped up footage half the time and elderly onlookers make disapproving comments. It gets to the point where Nancy starts screaming rape and it's all just a silly joke. This is the main reason I'd say some people claim the film hasn't aged well but I suspect these things just weren't good ideas to begin with. Well, I do admire the chutzpah.

The Knack . . . and How to Get It is available on The Criterion Channel.