Look, I may be green but I'm not cabbage coloured...
The difference between American and British psychedelia is often put down to the former’s greater seriousness driven by civil rights and the Vietnam War, US music and film of this period was generally more earnest although that wasn’t always a trademark of quality. The Brits for their part were more flower than power with pure whimsy rather than lysergic acid often being the case. That said, Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour quickly turned into Helter Skelter and Yer Blues, the Floyd lost Syd and started experimenting with music concrete and politics. In cinematic terms there seem to have been as many lame and tame US attempts at catching the zeitgeist as British and, ultimately, if you were there you probably don’t remember anyway.
Smashing Time could be viewed as an outsider’s take but there were enough cool and talented folk involved to still make it of interest. It was also filmed in Kings Road, Camden - The Roundhouse - Carnaby Street and the surrounds and there’s a genuine psychedelic buzz even if, as was probably the case at the time, the world was still mostly set in the reality of post-war austerity as much as the funky future: there’s certainly enough “dreary” on view in the streets.
Written by the by then middle-aged scouse jazzman George Melly, film and TV critic for the Observer at this time, he certainly knew the scene and even if that was less intimately than someone half his age, he’d been there in the fifties and no doubt mixed with the young trendies as he moved from the Colony Rooms to the French or the Coach; the regular Soho haunts that are mostly still there. In the 1980s I bumped into him in the old Soho Brasserie and we talked about Ronnie Scotts, a venue he must have played so many times.
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| Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave |
His work here is strongest in its presentation of the relationship of the leading characters played by two of the era’s great “It” Girls, fellow scouser Rita Tushingham as Brenda and Lynn Redgrave as Yvonne and. As my Gen Z daughter points out, the two are like competitive sisters, getting each other out of trouble even as they bicker and compete with the willowy Yvonne more certain of her own importance and Brenda smartly supporting her and, most often, getting her own way. Sisters, sisters… lord help the mister who comes between them.
The film starts with Brenda and Yvonne travelling down for
the unspecified North to arrive at St Pancras, the first of many great
locations all of which are covered in detail over at Reel Streets. The girls
get a taxi across the West End crossing Weymouth Street with a view of the then
brand-new Post Office Tower before heading over to Fleet Road in Belsize Park
where they aim to stay. They lose their money to a tramp though and there’s a
slapstick food fight in a café run by Arthur Mullard which ends up as a psychedelic
mess and Brenda washing up.
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| Arthur Mullard |
Yvonne meanwhile heads off to Carnaby Street which gives a real flavour of Swinging London full of garish signage and bright-coloured clothes. She gets photographed by top fashion taste-maker Tom Wabe (Michael York) who puts her in a newspaper as part of his series on The Girls Who Get it Wrong. Brenda buys some new – old – clothes from Mrs. Gimble’s (Irene Handl) thrift store and gets a job in a trendy shop run by Charlotte Brillig (Anna Quayle) but gets it wrong as she starts to sell the stock which was never Charlotte’s intention.
They find accommodation at 16 Grudge Street and their landlady, Toni (Toni Palmer) also gets them work as hostesses in a Soho club which involves Brenda dressing up as a rather fetching squirrel and Yvonne in evening ware. Neither has a clue about the subtext of their work and Squirrel has to come to Yvonne’s rescue when tipsy minor noble, Bobby Mome-Rath (Ian Carmichael on fine form), tries to have his evil way.
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| Lynn, Rita and Ian |
Throughout Melly’s fast-flowing script there are numerous digs at materialism and the phoney rebellion against it. The girls eventually make it when their house is destroyed as part of a prank TV show hosted by Peter Jones as Dominic. Yvonne takes their winnings and buys herself into a career as a pop star, singing a suitably empty song about not being able to sing etc. The songs are all written by Academy Award winner (for Tom Jones (1963)) John Addison with Melly providing most of the lyrics and the two leads singing
Yvonne is a huge success with Jeremy Tove (Jeremy Lloyd)
plotting out her future in the fast-moving world of hear-today, gone tomorrow
but when he calls in super-snapper Tom Wabe, he renews his acquaintance with
Brenda and, whisking her away to his house boat in the Regents Street Basin he
takes the photo sets that will make her the new sensation.
The girls fall out and everything comes to a head at a swinging party in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower which has an hilarious guest list, with actress (Veronica Carlson) and Bishop, followed by a John and Yoko alike couple, a small Twiggy-type and what could be The Fab Four carry a swami on a carpet. Upstairs we see Tove’s latest group, The Snarks, played by members of Tomorrow, who really were genuine psychedelic royalty, Keith West who had a huge hit with Grocer Jack, Steve Howe, later of Asia and still lead guitarists with Prog Lords Yes and Twink who not only went to join The Pink Fairies but played with Syd Barrett post-Floyd - perhaps the pre-eminent figure of The Underground.
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| Keith West, Steve Howe and Twink |
Dusty Verdict: Smashing Time is a flawed but richly entertaining film well directed by Desmond Davis who also made Girl with Green Eyes (1964) with Tushingham and Clash of the Titans (1981) with a robot owl! In addition to catching the moment also shows the city during this period of change as old Victorian streets were transformed and modernist concrete was on the rise – the irony being that much of this is now being replaced although what is now the BT Tower still stands.
For me Rita Tushingham is MVP and is full of energy and animated invention, hopping along the early morning Hampstead Streets in her squirrel costume and making a PC on the beat laugh whilst adding moments of seriousness too, especially in her relationship with Michael Yorke’s character. Lynn Redgrave gives a broader performance being both less northern than Rita and aligned with Melly’s sense of humour.
The film performed poorly though and was described by The Monthly Film Bulletin as "A clumsy attempt to create a female comedy team… the glossy vulgarity of Smashing Time quickly becomes as irritating as the brash musical score and the discordant colours that constantly fill the screen." It’s value as a time capsule and the intent behind a critique of what we have seen rinsed and repeated ever since do make it worth your time, just don’t expect Blow Up!
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| Lynn Redgrave |
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| Michael York and Rita T at The Roundhouse |
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| Toni Palmer and one of the defining images of the sixties... |