Film Snail

Smashing Time
Smashing Time

6.2

Smashing Time

NR·1967·96m

Summary

Two young women arrive in London to make it big in show business, and become corrupted by money and fame in the process.

Crew

Director

Desmond Davis

Writer

George Melly

Reviews

Geronimo1967

Geronimo1967

November 26, 2024

6

The timid "Brenda" (Rita Tushingham) and her more brash mate "Yvonne" (Lynn Redgrave) arrive in London determined to make it big. Pretty quickly, though, they find themselves at odds with each other as success visits the latter whilst the former ends up working in a greasy spoon. Several food fights later, they realise that perhaps it's better to work together, but after some brief success fleecing the wealthy - like the posh "Mone-Rath" (Ian Carmichael) a real opportunity presents itself. "Yvonne" wins £10,000 on one of those "you have to laugh" television shows where they demolish your house as a surprise for you coming home from work, and then you're meant to giggle about it. She decides to invest the cash in a record deal, and with her pal in tow as her assistant, she finds herself with an hit on her hands and the talk of the town. It's this bit that rather livens the film up as it delivers an entertainingly savage swipe at the whole faux nature of show-business. The endless spongers and hangers-on, the executives - in this case the smarmy "Jeremy" (Jeremy Lloyd) - who are out for themselves, and the party-goers who live their lives for the moment. It all comes to an head in the revolving restaurant of London's Post Office tower where, yep, more food gets flung. Musical impresario George Melly was behind quite a lot of this, and you can appreciate his jazzy-style on the soundtrack as the story stays just about on the right side of farce. The two women work quite well together and though the script isn't much to write home about, the film works better than I was expecting as a piece of 1960s satire on the working class, sexuality, fashion, aspiration and the fickleness of the music business. There are some fun scenes around Carnaby Street too!

Media

No Videos to show.

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

musical