Hard to believe she started off on celluloid as the ‘if wet’ Audrey Hepburn, after the latter’s ‘people’ baulked at the rum goings-on within Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey and demanded a sweetness-and-light replacement ending more in tune with La Hep’s star persona. And so, wisely, Rita was hired, and a ’60s-defining career set in motion: The Leather Boys, Girl with Green Eyes, The Knack and How to Get It and, inevitably, Smashing Time. Even in Endsleigh League caper comedy Diamonds for Breakfast, she proves too many kooks can only improve the cinematic broth.
FINEST HOUR: Hard pressed to beat The Knack we feel. Anyone prepared to run around a Maida Vale front room while Ray Brooks whips them with his belt deserves whatever awards we can fling at them, and quite possibly a month off, too.
Tabby tamer 73
April 3, 2014 at 10:02 pm
Try Straight on Till Morning,a very unsettling film.