THE KNACK ...AND HOW TO GET IT

Publicity photograph from The Knack …And How To Get It, portraying Ray Brooks as Tolen astride his highly-customised Ariel Arrow motorbike and Michael Crawford as Colin leaning out of his house's front window (© Richard Lester/Woodfall Film Productions/Lopert Pictures Corporation/United Artists Corporation – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 29 August 2022, courtesy of the UK retro TV channel Talking Pictures, my evening movie watch was the vintage British b/w 'comedy' movie The Knack ...And How To Get It.

Directed by Richard Lester, based upon a play by Ann Jellicoe, and released in 1965 by Lopert Pictures Corporation, The Knack supposedly epitomises the swinging sixties in London, but if so I'm glad that I was too young and too far from London to have encountered it, as it left me entirely cold.

This is because I found this film in turns to be mind-numbingly dull, packed full with exceedingly forced, frenetic, yet generally failed attempts at being zany, and outrageously derogatory to women – especially during the final scenes in which a confused, ultimately mistaken claim of rape by the lead female character elicits nothing but an extended series of unbelievably crass, distasteful wisecracks and jokey retorts from the three male leads and even, incredibly, from the female character herself!

A young Michael Crawford stars as a sexually-inexperienced teacher named Colin (whose house is the focal point of much of this movie's action), behaving for much of the time like an embryonic Frank Spencer (from the later UK sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, which first brought Crawford to widespread public attention), alongside an effortlessly cool Ray Brooks as sharply dressed bequiffed mod/rocker hybrid Tolen whose overt prowess with women proves that he unequivocally possesses 'the knack' that his friend Colin so desperately seeks to get.

Also starring is Rita Tushingham who once again plays her stock-in-trade 1960s character (here named Nancy) of a doe-eyed but slightly unhinged ingenue (Nancy being the character falsely claiming rape, with Tolen being her falsely-claimed rapist). In addition, there are cameos by such 60s icons as Jane Birkin, Jacqueline Bisset, and Charlotte Rampling (all making their screen debuts here). And classic American rock band The Knack (of 'My Sharona' fame) is allegedly named after this movie.

The Knack is very surreal at times, particularly when Colin's white-emulsion-obsessed and more than a little insane painter lodger Tom (Donal Donnelly) is around, and espouses social attitudes that will certainly shock today's millennials. In my opinion, the best way of describing this overblown, overrated movie is simply to say that it was very much a film of its time (which presumably explains how it somehow won the Palme d'Or Best Picture award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival!), and leave it at that.

I'd originally planned to purchase The Knack on DVD, but after having now watched it on TV I shan't bother. For despite including some evocative background music from John Barry (to which words were later added, and released as a (non-charting) single by legendary British rocker Johnny de Little – click here to listen to it on YouTube) and a memorable motorbike (a 200cc Ariel Arrow with ape-hanger handlebars) ridden by Tolen, this is definitely not a movie that has the knack of tempting me to watch it ever again, that's for sure.

But I'll leave you to make up your own mind about it, by clicking here to watch an official trailer for The Knack on YouTube.

To view a complete comprehensive listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

TIME MASTERS (aka LES MAÎTRES DU TEMPS)

Publicity poster for the original version of Time Masters (© René Laloux/Tibor Hernádi/Image Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

One animated feature film that I've long wanted to watch but had never succeeded in tracking down (or so I thought...) was the Franco-Hungarian 1982 movie Les Maîtres du Temps, or Time Masters as it was entitled in the English-speaking world. Lately I've been seeking it out online in DVD format, and have found several foreign-language versions, with not only the original French audio option but also dubbings into Hungarian, Russian, and German - but not English, although most versions have English subtitles, which is better than nothing.

On 11 June 2020, I learnt that an American DVD of it has also been released, but again it has no English audio, only French, which seems odd, so I became resigned to having to make do with subtitles and intended to look out for the American version, which does at least have the English-language title and cover text. Happily, however, Fate kindly stepped in at this point, and in a most surprising, greatly-welcomed manner too.

As we all did back in the day, when I bought my first VCR (videocassette recorder) in the 1980s it was quite a novelty to record on blank videocassette tapes for personal viewing all manner of movies, documentaries, TV shows, etc. Inevitably, however, I never got around to viewing many of them, and they've been stored down through the many intervening years in those interlocking plastic videocassette drawers that used to be so abundant in shops everywhere. Even so, me being me, I did meticulously list exactly what was on each tape, and kept those listings with the tapes. Later on 11 June, I had a look at those listings, for the first time in a very long while, and was pleasantly surprised to find some films and shows that I not only had never watched but also had completely forgotten about - including Time Masters! However, the best was still to come.

When I promptly placed the tape containing Time Masters in my VCR and played it, I was amazed to find that it was an English-dubbed version! The lead character's voice was that of Ray Brooks, a popular English actor (his films include The Knack ...And How To Get It, reviewed by me here) who has also supplied all manner of voice-overs for TV advertisements, children's cartoons (e.g. Mr Benn), etc. Investigating this version, I discovered that it had been co-produced by the UK's BBC TV company, but I have not been able to find any mention online of it ever having been released in any home media format, which is very strange. All that I know is that the BBC screened it on television in the UK once in 1987 and again in 1991. So I'd been lucky enough to catch it and tape it during one of these TV showings. Needless to say, I lost no time at all in sitting back and watching for the first time ever this hitherto-undiscovered cinematic pearl that had been hidden in plain sight for so long within my videocassette collection.

Directed by René Laloux (with Tibor Hernádi as technical director) and based upon a 1958 sci-fi novel by Stefan Wul entitled L'Orphelin de Perdide ('The Orphan of Perdide'), Time Masters tells the story of how on the planet Perdide, far far away, a craft containing a small child and his parents crashes after being attacked by monstrous insects, killing the parents. The child, Piel, survives; and thanks to a communications device shaped like an American Football ball that Piel was given by his father just before he died, a spaceship piloted by his parents' friend Jaffar is able to communicate with him and advises him to stay hidden in a weird, coral-like forest, where he will be safe from the insects until Jaffar's spaceship, the Double Triangle 22, can reach him (it is currently very far away).

Publicity poster for the American version of Time Masters (© René Laloux/Tibor Hernádi/Image Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

To cut a very complex story short, the Double Triangle 22 stops en route on a planet where Jaffar's friend, an old man named Silbad, who had spent some time on Perdide and is therefore familiar with what to expect there, joins them to help rescue Piel, after which they journey on toward Perdide. Due to various complications, however, Jaffar also has to land first on another planet, Gamma 10, which is inhabited by identical faceless angel-like beings, and prevent himself from being transformed into one of them. Finally, however, the Double Triangle 22 approaches Perdide, only to be confronted by immensely advanced beings known as the Time Masters...

The climactic plot twist resulting from this meeting is very unexpected, albeit featuring the almost de rigueur time travel subplot that so often crops up in sci-fi movies, and yields, I felt, a somewhat sad ending.

My one issue with this English-dubbed version is that some of the voice actors spoke in a curiously expressionless monotone, more robotic than realistic. Overall, however, Time Masters is an engaging, engrossing film with beautifully strange animated layouts and designs based upon the exquisite artwork of the eminent French comic-book artist/author/designer Moebius (real name Jean Giraud, and whose work had also appeared a year earlier in the animated sci fi/fantasy movie Heavy Metal, reviewed by me here). In short, it is well worth watching, and the videocassette tape containing this unexpected, much-valued find is now ensconced with all of my other animation DVDs and videos.

Moreover, I have since discovered that (at least at the time of my writing this review) the full English-dubbed version of Time Masters can be viewed here for free on YouTube. Consequently, I'd advise any animation fan to make the most of this rare opportunity to watch this elusive version if you have chance to do so, because I am still unaware of its existence in any DVD or videocassette format, so if it vanishes off YouTube it may be very difficult to find anywhere again.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

A still from Time Masters depicting the faceless angel-like entities encountered by Jaffar on the planet Gamma 10 (© René Laloux/Tibor Hernádi/Image Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)