Main Cast: Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave, Michael York, Anna Quayle, Irene Handl
Release Year: 1967
Country: UK
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
Smashing Time attempts to turn British actresses Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave into a female Laurel and Hardy. The film's second mistake is to prolong the joke for 96 minutes. Tushingham and Redgrave play a couple of dimwitted North Country girls who head to London, in hopes of breaking into the mad, mod world of fashion modeling. Instead they spend most of their screen time getting in each other's way and wreaking havoc on innocent pedestrians. The comic "highlight" of Smashing Time is supposed to be a mammoth pie fight; but outside of one cute throwaway gag involving a street minister, the sequence makes one wish, in the words of Laurel and Hardy buff Leonard Maltin, that Smashing Time "had been handled by someone other than [director] Desmond Davis." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Smashing Time is a very enjoyable little comedy, but it's even more enjoyable as a time capsule. Although definitely a satire, and therefore employing some exaggeration, most of Smashing does a very good job of capturing the specific look and atmosphere of 1960s "mod" London. Those who know of the era only through Austin Powers and similar films should definitely grab a look at Smashing and see what the real thing was like. As a film rather than a snapshot of an era, Smashing is subject to greater scrutiny, and it definitely has flaws. The comedy is overly broad, the slapstick sequences (especially the obligatory pie fight) don't work as well as they ought to, and Desmond Davis' direction isn't as "with it" as it thinks it is. Smashing needs a Richard Lester, and while Davis' work is solid and respectable, it's too traditional for the material. Smashing's stars work very well together, with Lynn Redgrave's brash and confident Yvonne and Rita Tushingham's initially shy and adorable Brenda working as perfect foils for each other. Ian Carmichael is a marvelous upper-class lech, Anna Quayle brings her unique personality to the proceedings, and Michael York is a most appealing photographer. Despite its flaws, Smashing is an engaging romp with a look that just won't stop. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Ian Carmichael - Bobbi Mome-Rath; Toni Palmer - Toni; Jeremy Lloyd - Jeremy Tove; Arthur Mullard - Cafe Boss; Sydney Bromley - Tramp; Murray Melvin - 1st Exquisite; Paul Danquah - 2nd Exquisite; Valerie Leon - Tove's Secretary; Jerold Wells - Man in Cafe No. 6; Yuri Borienko; Veronica Carlson; Golda Casimir; John Clive - Sweenie Todd Manager; Howard Marion-Crawford - Hall Porter; Julian Curry; Amy Dalby - Demolished Old Lady; Tom Gill; Danny Green; Geoffrey Hughes; Brenda Kempner; Sam Kydd; Bruce Lacey - Clive Sword; David Lodge - The Caretaker; Arthur Lovegrove; Vanessa Redgrave; Cardew Robinson - Custard-Pie Vicar; Frank Sieman; Will Stampe; Ronnie Stevens - 1st Waiter; Michael Ward; George A. Cooper - Irishman; Desmond Davis; Peter Jones - Dominic; Kate Binchy; Bart Allison; Stuart Saunders; Gabor Baraker; Bernard Stone; Susan Whitman
Credit
Ken Bridgeman - Art Director, Ruth Myers - Costume Designer, Desmond Davis - Director, Barrie Vince - Editor, John Addison - Composer (Music Score), Victor Smith - Composer (Music Score), Richard Mills - Makeup, Manny Wynn - Cinematographer, Carlo Ponti - Producer, Roy Millichip - Producer, George Melly - Screenwriter
Brenda (Tushingham) and Yvonne (Redgrave), two girls from the North of England, arrive in London to seek fame and fortune. However, their image of the city is quickly tarnished when they are robbed of their savings. Determined not to let her chance slip, Yvonne visits Carnaby Street in the hope of catching the eye of a trendy photographer, whilst Brenda gets a job in a 'greasy spoon' cafe.
Yvonne does get spotted by a trendy photographer, Tom Wabe (Michael York), but for all the wrong reasons; she is singled out for being poorly dressed.
After several unsuccessful job attempts, Yvonne accidentally wins the star prize in a television game show and decides to invest the prize money on being a pop star. Her single, I'm So Young, though patently awful, becomes a big hit and she and Brenda drift apart. However at a glamorous party (at the top of the Post Office Tower) the girls realise the shallowness of the media business and decide to return home.
Trivia
The film was nominated for a Golden Globe (Best English-Language Foreign Film) in 1968.
The film reunited Redgrave, Tushingham and director Davis from the 1964 film Girl with Green Eyes.
Michael York was to go on to appear in the Austin Powers films, which also parodied 'Swinging London'.
The then-popular BBC series Juke Box Jury is parodied as Hi-Fi Court.
The theme-tune was sung by Tushingham and Redgrave. In the 1993 BBC series Hollywood UK, about the British film industry in the 1960s, the actresses appeared in the back of a London taxi singing the theme again.
