{ "id": "epc1fzkvav", "slug": "the-knack-and-how-to-get-it", "title": "The Knack... and How to Get It", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000: Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Knack... and How to Get It (1965) is Richard Lester's black-and-white comedy, adapted by Charles Wood from Ann Jellicoe's play, about a shy London schoolteacher seeking seduction skills; it won Cannes' Grand Prix and six BAFTA nominations.", "snippet": "The Knack... and How to Get It (1965) is Richard Lester's black-and-white comedy, adapted by Charles Wood from Ann Jellicoe's play, about a shy London schoolteacher seeking seduction skills; it won Cannes' Grand Prix and six BAFTA nominations.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "markdown": "# The Knack... and How to Get It\n\n*The Knack... and How to Get It* is a 1965 British black-and-white comedy directed by [Richard Lester](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-lester), adapted by Charles Wood from Ann Jellicoe's play about a shy London schoolteacher who begs a womanizing lodger to teach him \"the knack\" of seducing women. It won the top prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and became one of the defining films of \"swinging London\".[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/06de8dbc-14da-58b4-9692-a9a75eac1314/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / screenwriter | Richard Lester; screenplay by Charles Wood from the play by Ann Jellicoe[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/06de8dbc-14da-58b4-9692-a9a75eac1314/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) |\n| Principal cast | Rita Tushingham (Nancy Jones), Ray Brooks (Tolen), Michael Crawford (Colin), Donal Donnelly (Tom)[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/06de8dbc-14da-58b4-9692-a9a75eac1314/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) |\n| Top prize | Grand Prix (the award later called the Palme d'Or) at Cannes 1965, plus a special mention from the festival's technical commission[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it/) |\n| Other honors | 6 BAFTA nominations including Best Film; Golden Globe nominations for Best English-Language Foreign Film and Best Actress (Tushingham); Berlinale official selection[3](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film370116.html) |\n| Production | Woodfall Film Productions; producer Oscar Lewenstein; shot in black and white, 84 minutes (some sources list 85)[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/06de8dbc-14da-58b4-9692-a9a75eac1314/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [3](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film370116.html) |\n| Craft team | Cinematography David Watkin, editing Antony Gibbs, production design Assheton Gorton, music John Barry with songs by Alan Haven[4](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/knack/) |\n| Budget | Made in a matter of weeks for $385,000[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nColin ([Michael Crawford](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-crawford)) is a timid London schoolteacher and landlord who confesses to his lodger Tolen (Ray Brooks) that he lacks \"the knack\", the effortless charm with which Tolen attracts women, a streak of success he backs with a long list of conquests, souvenir medallions and a guest book restricted to one word per visitor.[6](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/) A third tenant, Tom (Donal Donnelly), is an eccentric artist who paints every wall, window and mirror in the flat white because he hates brown and green.[7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/)\n\nTo improve his luck, Colin buys a large brass bed from a junkyard, and he and Tom haul it through the London streets. Along the way they pick up Nancy ([Rita Tushingham](https://www.edgepedia.org/rita-tushingham)), a wide-eyed country girl who was looking for directions to a YWCA and remarks, as the men lift the bed she is sitting on, \"I've been picked up, haven't I?\"[8](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html) • [7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/) Colin falls for Nancy, but the self-assured Tolen soon moves in on her and carries her off on his motorcycle.[6](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) After Nancy passes out and wakes to find Tom and Colin hovering over her, she accuses Tolen of rape, the unglued rake flees, and Colin befriends her; the film's point is that he has finally learned \"the knack\".[4](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/knack/) Contemporary reviewers noted the fairy-tale symmetry of the ending: the Harvard Crimson read it as \"feeling's triumph over unfeeling, innocence's defeat of evil\", while the critic at the Cleveland Press stressed that the film is candid about sex yet keeps more happening in the mind than the bedroom.[7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/) • [8](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html)\n\n## From stage to screen\n\nAnn Jellicoe's play *The Knack*, first produced at the Royal Court in 1962, was a talky, one-act, essentially plotless piece that succeeded in London and off-Broadway in New York before the film's producers picked it up.[9](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/British%20Film%20Design%20A%20History%20by%20Laurie%20N.%20Ede.pdf) • [8](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html) • [5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) Screenwriter Charles Wood first negotiated with director [Lindsay Anderson](https://www.edgepedia.org/lindsay-anderson), who declined; Lester, then hot off *A Hard Day's Night* (1964), was commissioned to make the Beatles' next film and took *The Knack* as an in-between project, shooting it in weeks before *Help!* (1965).[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n\nThe adaptation kept much of Jellicoe's dialogue but threw the action open onto the streets of London, replacing three acts of conversation in a single-bedroom set with the whole city and a fluid camera.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [8](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html) Of the ensemble, only Rita Tushingham came from the stage production; she was the best-known name after her award-winning debut in *[A Taste of Honey](https://www.edgepedia.org/a-taste-of-honey-film)* (1961).[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) The film also carried uncredited early appearances by [Jane Birkin](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-birkin), Charlotte Rampling, and [Jacqueline Bisset](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacqueline-bisset).[10](https://kinolorber.com/film/knackandhowtogetitthe)\n\n## Style and technique\n\n**A commercial-cutting grammar.** Lester had directed and perfected his technique in more than 50 television commercials before this film, and the picture fuses the fast-paced editing style of advertising with the sensibilities of [French New Wave](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-new-wave) directors such as [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard).[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) The film consists of very short scenes like blackout sketches plus longer set pieces, built on a jumpy, free-association style of editing.[7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/) TIME's reviewer cataloged the tricks: freezing the action in frame, running scenes backward, flashing titles to identify commonplace objects such as \"A Saw, A Tool Kit, Girls\".[11](https://time.com/archive/6627787/cinema-three-men-a-girl/)\n\n**The bed and the chorus.** The film's most famous sequence carries the ornate wrought-iron bed through London: pushed along roads and alleys, appearing on the upper deck of a truck, on a barge on the Thames, tied to the back of a car, run through a car wash, floated down the river, and used as a trampoline.[12](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/07/10/variations-on-a-theme-by-jellicoe) • [8](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html) During these outdoor scenes Lester filmed candid, unrehearsed reactions from real bystanders and over-dubbed them with running commentary; the middle-aged onlookers grumbling about the degeneration of youth act as a [Greek chorus](https://www.edgepedia.org/greek-chorus) of conformist grouches, sometimes heard only as voices in counterpoint.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [13](https://www.filmfestival.be/en/film/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) • [7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/)\n\n**Whiteness.** The visual motif is whiteness: a dazzling white sky, the paint-covered living room, and fantasies of lines of white-sweatered blondes waiting outside Tolen's room, rendered in overexposed, high-key photography that makes even ordinary actions seem slightly unreal.[7](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/)\n\n## Reception and awards\n\nAt Cannes 1965 the film received the festival's Grand Prix, the top competition award, together with a special mention from the Commission Supérieure Technique.[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it/) British festival sources from later decades bill it as the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor), the name the top prize later took, and the Belgian Film Critics Association awarded it its Grand Prix de l'UCC in 1966.[6](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) The film was in official selection at the Berlin Film Festival, received 6 BAFTA nominations including Best Film, and picked up two Golden Globe nominations.[3](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film370116.html) Its win surprised critics and audiences alike.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n\nThe press reaction was divided from the start. Variety praised the four lead performances as \"exceptionally good\".[6](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) TIME called it \"too clever for its own good\", granting that it was \"always inventive and often hilarious\" but finding the characters rarely \"insecure, subtly tyrannized by their own drives, or even significantly related to one another\".[11](https://time.com/archive/6627787/cinema-three-men-a-girl/) The critic Raymond Durgnat, writing in *Films and Filming* in July 1965, judged that the film's cascade of gags dissipates the play's \"emotional voltage, its anxious strain and violence\".[14](https://www.enotes.com/topics/richard-lester/criticism/raymond-durgnat) Edith Oliver in *The New Yorker* saw the comic fantasy become \"a poem, in pictures, words, and music, of youth, innocence, ardor, love, London, and Rita Tushingham\".[12](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/07/10/variations-on-a-theme-by-jellicoe) Decades later opinions remained split: Dennis Schwartz called it an \"embarrassingly crude and dated\" swinging-sixties tale, while the Village Voice read it as a cool-headed exploration of the confused sexual signals young men and women faced after the sexual revolution.[4](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/knack/) • [15](https://www.villagevoice.com/richard-lester-brought-pop-to-the-screen-and-made-the-screen-pop/)\n\n## Place in Lester's career and in Swinging London\n\n*The Knack* is the film that most ensured Lester's association with Swinging London, the screen image of a modernizing, youth-driven London that *Time* magazine labeled \"the Swinging City\" in April 1966.[16](https://psi329.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Shail%2C%20British-Film-Directors-A-Critical-Guide.pdf) • [17](https://theapollonian.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TA-Last-Issue.pdf) Scholarship lists it alongside *Darling* (1965) and *Alfie* (1966) among British comedies that represented the new \"permissiveness\" of 1960s London, and its parody of male arrogance toward women has been called startlingly diagnostic for so early in the decade.[18](https://psi329.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/bfi-16%2B-source-guides-1960s-british-cinema-2000.pdf) • [6](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it) Scholarly work on Jellicoe's original play places it in postwar Britain's public debate over family, sexuality and gender roles, noting how the single female character moves between being an object in the men's traffic and asserting an active subject role.[19](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/637508.pdf)\n\nThe film was produced by Woodfall Film Productions, the company behind the British New Wave's gritty dramas such as *Saturday Night and Sunday Morning* and *A Taste of Honey*, making *The Knack* an atypically antic entry in its catalog.[20](https://www.bryanmatthew.co.uk/film-theatre-tv/86-the-knack-perhaps-not-worth-knowing)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Knack ...And How to Get It (1965), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/06de8dbc-14da-58b4-9692-a9a75eac1314/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n2. [The Knack... and How to Get It, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it/)\n3. [The Knack... and How to Get It (1965), FilmAffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film370116.html)\n4. [The Knack ... and How to Get It, Dennis Schwartz Reviews](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/knack/)\n5. [The Knack...And How To Get It, by Richard Steiner, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/84070/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n6. [The Knack ... And How To Get It, MINI British Film Festival 2018](https://2018.bff.palace.pipelabs.dev/films/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n7. [The Knack..., by Martin S. Levine, The Harvard Crimson, 22 September 1965](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/9/22/the-knack-pithe-knackand-how-to/)\n8. [Comedy Has a Certain Knack, Tony Mastroianni, Cleveland Press, 30 July 1965](https://clevelandmemory.com/mastroianni/tm502.html)\n9. [British Film Design: A History, Laurie N. Ede](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/British%20Film%20Design%20A%20History%20by%20Laurie%20N.%20Ede.pdf)\n10. [The Knack...and How to Get It, Kino Lorber Theatrical](https://kinolorber.com/film/knackandhowtogetitthe)\n11. [Cinema: Three Men & a Girl, TIME, 9 July 1965](https://time.com/archive/6627787/cinema-three-men-a-girl/)\n12. [Variations on a Theme by Jellicoe, by Edith Oliver, The New Yorker, 10 July 1965](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/07/10/variations-on-a-theme-by-jellicoe)\n13. [The Knack... and How to Get It, Film Fest Gent](https://www.filmfestival.be/en/film/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\n14. [Raymond Durgnat, \"'The Knack'\", Films and Filming, Vol. 11, No. 10, July 1965, via eNotes](https://www.enotes.com/topics/richard-lester/criticism/raymond-durgnat)\n15. [Richard Lester Brought Pop to the Screen — and Made the Screen Pop, The Village Voice](https://www.villagevoice.com/richard-lester-brought-pop-to-the-screen-and-made-the-screen-pop/)\n16. [British Film Directors: A Critical Guide, Shail, entry on Richard Lester](https://psi329.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Shail%2C%20British-Film-Directors-A-Critical-Guide.pdf)\n17. [Exploring Swinging London films, The Apollonian](https://theapollonian.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TA-Last-Issue.pdf)\n18. [BFI 16+ Source Guides: Sixties British Cinema](https://psi329.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/bfi-16%2B-source-guides-1960s-british-cinema-2000.pdf)\n19. [Exploring Gender Roles in the 60s: Ann Jellicoe's The Knack and Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Mireia Aragay i Sastre, Atlantis XVI 1-2, 1994](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/637508.pdf)\n20. [The Knack — perhaps not worth knowing?, Bryan Matthew](https://www.bryanmatthew.co.uk/film-theatre-tv/86-the-knack-perhaps-not-worth-knowing)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1960s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Knack... and How to Get It\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Knack... and How to Get It](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Knack... and How to Get It\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Knack... and How to Get It is Richard Lester's black-and-white comedy, adapted by Charles Wood from Ann Jellicoe's play, about a shy London schoolteacher seeking seduction skills; it won Cannes' Grand Prix and six BAFTA nominations." }