The Servant [Blu-ray] [Criterion Collection]

Overview

Wealthy wastrel James Fox hires insouciant cockney Dirk Bogarde as a valet. No sooner has he donned his working clothes than Bogarde begins exercising a subtle but insidious control over his master. Suggesting that the house could use a little fixing up, Bogarde convinces Fox to spend a whopping amount of money on it. But this is just a warm-up session for Bogarde, who by mid-film is calling all the shots in the Fox household, all the while pretending to keep his place. Fox's fiance Wendy Craig sees through Bogarde's game. Bogarde then brings his own lady friend Sarah Miles into the house. At Bogarde's insistence, Miles seduces Fox, thereby loosening Craig's hold on the confused young man. And so it goes. The homosexual subtext of The Servant disturbed some of the more hidebound critics of 1963; Harold Pinter based his cryptic screenplay on a novel by Robin Maugham.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/20/2023
UPC:	0715515284714
Original Release:	1963
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:55:00
Sales rank:	7,725

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

James Fox	Tony
Dirk Bogarde	Hugo Barrett
Sarah Miles	Vera
Wendy Craig	Susan
Catherine Lacey	Lady Mounset
Richard Vernon	Lord Mounset
Ann Firbank	Society Woman
Doris Knox	Older Woman
Patrick Magee	Bishop
Jill Melford	Younger Woman
Alun Owen	Curate
Harold Pinter	Society Man
Derek Tansley	Head Waiter
Brian Phelan	Irishman in Pub
Hazel Terry	Woman in Big Hat
Philippa Hare	Girl in Bedroom
Dorothy Bromiley	Girl Outside Phone Box
Colette Martin	Her Friend
Joanna Wake	Her Friend
Harriet Devine	Her Friend
Alison Seebohm	Girl in Pub
Chris Williams	Cashier in Coffee Bar
Gerry Duggan	Waiter
John Dankworth	Jazz Bandleader,Composer
Davy Graham	Guitarist
Bruce Wells	Sidewalk Painter
Doris Nolan	la femme

Technical Credits

Robin Maugham

Harold Pinter

Joseph Losey	Director,Producer
Norman Priggen	Producer
Robin Maugham	Screenwriter
Harold Pinter	Screenwriter
Buster Ambler	Sound Effects
John Cox	Sound Effects
Gerry Hambling	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

Few films have gotten as much mileage out of Britain's caste system as The Servant, a psycho-sexual black comedy charting the uneasy relationship between lazy young aristocrat Tony (James Fox) and his devious, reserved manservant Hugo (Dirk Bogarde). One of the first films scripted by playwright Harold Pinter, The Servant is as much about gesture and mannerism as about spoken innuendo, and director Joseph Losey keeps the movie thick with suggestion: Hugo's co-conspirator Vera (Sarah Miles) is a study in coy seduction, and the sounds, shadows, and furnishings around the young man's estate are downright suffocating. Though the locations are minimal, the director never lets the movie become too stagy; Bogarde's hilarious fight for a phone booth is the stuff of classic silent comedy. That Bogarde and Losey never specify Hugo's rationale for corrupting Tony (money? control? sexual longing?) only adds to The Servant's allure and its ambiguous, hallucinogenic ending.

All Movie Guide - Michael Hastings