Les Bicyclettes de Belsize

Les Bicyclettes de Belsize is a 1968 British musical 29-minute short film directed by Douglas Hickox and starring Judy Huxtable and Anthony May.

The score also includes "Gentlemen Of The Park", performed by Episode Six and featuring future Deep Purple members Ian Gillan and Roger Glover.

The title is derivative of the French film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964); apart from a musical theme, there is no other obvious link.

An unnamed young man dressed in a fashionable mod style prepares for the day from his rooftop flat and cycles around to the theme song.

Cycling into a park, the man looks back to see if Kate is still following him, and loses control of the bike, running away down a hill and crashing through a large advertising hoarding.

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The bicycles of Belsize Park prove a poor substitute for the umbrellas of Cherbourg in this mawkish attempt to create a musical mood piece that emerges as an over-sell commercial for N.W.3.

Soft focus, psychedelic filters and a tirelessly swinging camera can of course contrive to make any neighbourhood look like a poet's dream of Montmartre, but one soon wearies of the sight of the hero mouthing the lyrics of some unmemorable and over-orchestrated songs as he busily pedals along, while the attempt to create a slapstick sequence with a member of the tricycle set and a few custard pies is possibly even more embarrassing than the scene in which Steve gathers plastic daffodils amid the autumn leaves of Primrose Hill.

"[4] Leslie Halliwell said: "Mildly attractive whimsy, obviously patterned on Les Parapluies de Cherbourg but not quite hitting the spot.