SMASHING TIME (1967)

Carnaby Street, with its hip fashion boutiques, bars, and discotheques, was the epicenter of the "Swinging 60s" in London. Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham are two young women who have come to Carnaby from the North to make it to the big time, though their plans are rather vague. Lynn is the more outgoing of the two and tends to boss Rita around. When their money is stolen just after they arrive on the street, Lynn makes Rita do dishes to pay for a meal while Lynn goes prancing up and down Carnaby, showing off what she thinks of as her really gear fashion sense while actually hip photographer Michael York is snapping pictures of her to run in the paper to make fun of her. The rest of the movie is a mostly plotless collection of scenes showing their rise and fall in the world of 60s pop culture. They get jobs, lose jobs, cause trouble in a diner leading to a colorful food fight, cause trouble in a pie shop (named Sweenie Todd's) leading to a wild pie fight, go to parties, romance men, etc. Lynn winds up almost accidentally having a hit record with a song called "While I'm Still Young" ("I can’t sing but I'm young/Can't do a thing but I'm young/…I'm a fool but I'm cool"), but she becomes jealous when Rita becomes a model and her face is everywhere. The somewhat apocalyptic climax occurs at a huge party when the girls wind up trashing a fancy building and blacking out much of London.

I remember seeing ads for this movie when I was 11 and wanting to see it, but I never did, and I've only now tracked it down on DVD. I'm sure I wouldn't have known how to take it back then, but now it works best as a colorful historical snapshot of mid-60s London as viewed through a lens of outrageous satire and slapstick. The duo of Redgrave and Tushingham must have been at least partial inspiration years later for the characters of Edina and Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous. After the first few minutes, the movie leaves reality behind completely. The names of some of the characters (Wabe, Brillig, Tove) clue us in as a guide to viewing: the names are words from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland, and this is a bit like Lynn and Rita in a fantasy London Wonderland. The comic bits are hit and miss, with the food fight and pie fight coming in tops for me, and the parody of a reality TV show less successful, although kudos to the scriptwriter George Melly for envisioning TV of the 21st century. Redgrave is fun, all bubbly and oblivious to everything around her. Tushingham is a little less enjoyable as the sad sack of the pair. A lot of supporting characters come and go, and Michael York, though third-billed, is just basically another one of those background people. The "Still Young" song is funny, and my favorite line echoes a small bit in A Hard Day’s Night: when throwing a huge party, Redgrave says, pretty much right to the camera, "Me coke bill alone is phenomenal," then after a beat, holds up a Coca-Cola bottle. Fun and fairly frothy, though by the end, it does wear out its welcome. Pictured are York and Redgrave. [DVD]