Plot
Wealthy Londoner Tony, who says he is part of a plan to build cities in Brazil, moves into his new house, and hires Hugo Barrett as his manservant. Barrett appears to take easily to his new job, and he and Tony form a quiet bond, retaining their social roles. Relationships begin shifting, however, when Tony's girlfriend Susan meets Barrett. She is suspicious of Barrett and asks Tony to dismiss him, but he refuses.
To bring his lover, Vera, into his world, Barrett convinces Tony that the house also needs a maid. When Tony finally agrees, Barrett hires Vera on the pretext that she is his sister. Barrett encourages Vera to seduce Tony. Later, when Tony and Susan return early from a vacation, they find Barrett and Vera sleeping together. Believing that the two are siblings, he flies into a rage at Barrett, who then reveals that they are not related and she is his fiancée. He and Vera then make it clear that Tony was sleeping with her, to Susan's dismay. After Tony dismisses them, Susan departs silently.
At this point, Tony has become reliant on Barrett and Vera. He becomes a drunkard, which is exacerbated by Susan's refusal to answer his calls. Eventually, Tony encounters Barrett in a pub, who spins a tale about Vera having made fools of them both. He begs Tony to re-engage him as his manservant, and he agrees.
Gradually the two reverse roles, with Barrett taking more control and Tony retreating into infantilism. Barrett also insinuates Vera back into the house. Susan arrives and attempts to convince Tony to come back to her. She finds him totally dependent on Barrett who keeps him supplied with alcohol and prostitutes. She walks through the sordid scene, and suddenly kisses Barrett, who forcefully returns her attentions. As he grows more brutal, Susan struggles to free herself from his embrace, and Tony, rising from his drunken stupor, attempts to intervene. However, he trips and falls onto the floor, causing all the prostitutes to laugh at him. Tony then has an outburst and Barrett orders everyone to leave. Before departing, Susan slaps Barrett with the jeweled collar of her coat. Barrett is shocked, but quickly recovers and places her coat on her shoulder as she leaves. He then walks upstairs where Vera is waiting for him, passing Tony, who is slumped on the ground and clutching a drink.
Production
The Servant was directed by Joseph Losey, an American director who spent the last part of his career and life in England, after being blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s. His health was poor during production, causing Bogarde to provide significant assistance with the direction and finishing the film. [6]
The film is based on The Servant, a 1948 Robin Maugham novella. The screenplay, written by Harold Pinter, stripped the plot to a more economical and chilling storyline. Pinter also appeared in the film, as a restaurant patron in one scene with a speaking part. [7]
Writing for the British Film Institute, film critic Nick James noted:
"It was Losey who first showed Robin Maugham's novella The Servant to Bogarde in 1954. Originally separately commissioned by director Michael Anderson, Pinter stripped it of its first-person narrator, its yellow book snobbery, and the arguably anti-Semitic characterisation of Barrett—oiliness, heavy lids—replacing them with an economical language that implied rather than stated the slippage of power relations away from Tony towards Barrett." [5]
Losey's other collaborations with Pinter, Accident and The Go-Between , share a resemblance to The Servant in that these offer the same savage indictment of the waning English class system, [8] a theme which had been rarely addressed in British cinema.
Reception
Upon release, Variety commended the film for its direction, acting and the "sharp incisive dialog" in Pinter's screenplay, writing: "The Servant is for the most part strong dramatic fare, though the atmosphere and tension is not fully sustained to the end." They also noted "the standout performance by Bogarde, for whom the role of the servant is offbeat casting" and "the noteworthy performance of James Fox, a newcomer with confident flair, who assuredly suggests the indolent young man about town." [9] Penelope Gilliatt of The Observer called it "a triumph" and wrote "the thing that is most exhilarating about the film is that it is has been written by someone who is obviously excited by the cinema and made by someone who obviously respects words". [12] Richard Roud writing in The Guardian and Ann Pacey of the Daily Herald claimed it was "a masterpiece". [11] [13]
In 2013, the Los Angeles Times film critic suggested that The Servant was the coldest film ever made, calling it "brilliantly icy". [7] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a rating of 90% and an average rating of 8.2/10 from 49 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Thanks in no small part to stellar work from director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter, The Servant strikes at class divisions with artful precision." [14] On Metacritic, it holds an average rating of 94/100, based on the reviews of nine critics. [15]
The film grossed £238,893 in the United Kingdom and £150,383 overseas for a worldwide total of £389,276. [16]
In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked The Servant as the 22nd-greatest British film of all time.
Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.
Darling is a 1965 British romantic drama film directed by John Schlesinger from a screenplay written by Frederic Raphael. It stars Julie Christie as Diana Scott, a young successful model and actress in Swinging London, toying with the affections of two older men, played by Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey. The film was shot on location in London, Paris and Rome and at Shepperton Studios by cinematographer Kenneth Higgins, with a musical score composed by Sir John Dankworth.
Joseph Walton Losey III was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".
Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the third of four Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others being The Servant (1963), Modesty Blaise (1966) and The Go-Between (1971). At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.
Reginald Mills was a British film editor and one-time film director with more than thirty feature film credits. Among his prominent films are The Red Shoes (1948), for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, The Servant (1963), and Romeo and Juliet (1968).
Modesty Blaise is a 1966 British spy-fi comedy film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by Joseph Janni, and loosely based on the popular comic strip Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell, who co-wrote the original story upon which Evan Jones and Harold Pinter based their screenplay. It stars Monica Vitti as "Modesty", opposite Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin and Dirk Bogarde as her nemesis Gabriel. The cast also includes Harry Andrews, Michael Craig, Alexander Knox, Rossella Falk, Clive Revill, and Tina Aumont. The film's music was composed by Johnny Dankworth and the theme song, Modesty, sung by pop duo David and Jonathan. It was Vitti's first English-speaking role.
The Go-Between is a 1971 British historical drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaptation of the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
The Birthday Party is a 1968 British drama neo noir directed by William Friedkin and starring Robert Shaw. It is based on the 1957 play The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. The screenplay for the film was written by Pinter as well. The film, and the play, are considered examples of "comedy of menace", a genre associated with Pinter.
Betrayal is a 1983 British drama film adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones. It was critically well received. Distributed by 20th Century Fox International Classics in the United States, it was first screened in movie theaters in New York in February 1983.
King and Country is a 1964 British war film directed by Joseph Losey, shot in black and white, and starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay. The film was adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Evan Jones based on the play Hamp by John Wilson and a 1955 novel by James Lansdale Hodson.
Remembrance of Things Past is the 2000 collaborative stage adaptation by Harold Pinter and director Di Trevis of Harold Pinter's as-yet unproduced The Proust Screenplay (1977), a screen adaptation of À la recherche du temps perdu, the 1913–1927 seven-volume novel by Marcel Proust.
"Track 12" is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard, it first appeared in the April 1958 edition of New Worlds. It then appeared in Penguin Science Fiction in 1961, Passport to Eternity, The Venus Hunters, The Overloaded Man, and later in The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1.
The Sleeping Tiger is a 1954 British film noir directed by Joseph Losey and starring Alexis Smith, Dirk Bogarde and Alexander Knox. It was Losey's first British feature, which he directed under the pseudonym of Victor Hanbury due to being blacklisted in the McCarthy Era. It was shot at Walton Studios and on location in London. The film's sets were designed by the art director John Stoll. It was released by Anglo-Amalgamated while in America it was distributed by Astor Pictures.
The 17th British Academy Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1964, honoured the best films of 1963.
Blind Date is a 1959 British murder mystery film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, and Micheline Presle.
The Dreaming Child is a screenplay by Harold Pinter (1930–2008), the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, which he completed in 1997 and published in volume 3 of his Collected Screenplays (2000). It has not yet been filmed but was produced as a radio play by Feelgood Films for BBC Radio Four's Unmade Movies series in 2015. It is an adaptation of the short story "The Dreaming Child" by Danish author Karen Blixen. Pinter's manuscripts for this work are housed in The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library.
The Gypsy and the Gentleman is a 1958 British costume drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It stars Melina Mercouri and Keith Michell.
Reginald Beck was a British film editor with forty-nine credits from 1932 to 1985. He is noted primarily for films done with Laurence Olivier in the 1940s and with Joseph Losey in the 1960s and 1970s.
