Smashing Time

Unrated

12/20/19671h 36m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Two Girls Go Stark Mod! ~

Overview:

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

Director:

Desmond Davis

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

musical

Cast

Rita Tushingham

~ as ~

Brenda

Lynn Redgrave

~ as ~

Yvonne

Michael York

~ as ~

Tom Wabe

Anna Quayle

~ as ~

Charlotte Brillig

Irene Handl

~ as ~

Mrs Gimble

Ian Carmichael

~ as ~

Bobby Mome-Rath

Jeremy Lloyd

~ as ~

Jeremy Tove

Toni Palmer

~ as ~

Toni

George A. Cooper

~ as ~

Irishman

Peter Jones

~ as ~

Dominic

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 1 year(s) ago
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!