Cinema: Three Men & a Girl

The Knack . . . and how to get it, as film comedies go, is too clever for its own good. Based on Ann Jellicoe's giddy, free-spirited play—still bouncing along off-Broadway—The Knack tells of a provincial lass (Rita Tushingham) at large in London who stumbles into a house occupied by three oddball bachelors. One is a potent pipsqueak (Ray Brooks), mysteriously endowed with the knack of "making it" with the opposite sex. One is a pallid, reticent schoolteacher (Michael Crawford), for whom the way of a Mod with a maid remains ever beyond reach. The third (Donal Donnelly) is a simple...