Supremely dark Losey film starring the incomparable Dirk Bogarde, who takes what you think is going to be a routine "blank-FROM-HELL" role and turns it completely on it's head, insinuating everything and doing nothing overt..... making what he actually does so much more deliciously evil. Some of the shots here are instanious classics and still amaze (the shot of James Fox and his fiance busting Bogarde and his sister, revealing only a continually clarifying silhouette of Bogarde standing naked on the stair landing, while Fox stares up, both appalled and enthralled; Fox's shivering silhouette as he hides from Bogarde behind a shower curtain in a deceptively innocent "game"). Pinter's script is admirably daring, though it does turn a bit too fast from melodrama to allegory for my taste --- it's still Pinter, and all the more brilliant for it regarding pace, timing, and -- of course -- dialogue.
stick with it
Losey's "The Servant" is a film you really have to stick with in order to get to the meat and potatoes. It's almost like two movies in one. It opens up innocently enough, with Dirk Bogarde (Hugo) coming to playboy Tony's (James Fox in a performance that oscillates between being mind numbingly annoying to heart rendingly pitiable) house, offering to be his servant. From there it will take the viewer awhile to understand just how sinister and depraved Bogarde's Hugo is--for a good part of the film he just seems to be a confused, buffoonish servant trying to do his job. From there things get really, really sick.
Co-dependency, class struggle, loneliness, alcoholism and finally madness dominate the house as Bogarde accomplishes a slick mastery of Tony's psyche and then his life. He gets the weak minded and wealthy playboy to cheat on his fiancee, and then takes advantage of the ruins his life is left in afterward. By the end of the film you know everything is screwed in a royal (no pun intended) way. Sickness and betrayal crawl from every frame of the last half an hour, and the transformation the film undergoes is unbelievably well done.
You really don't know who to sympathize with, since the only character with a single intent and purpose is Tony's fiancee who quickly flees when the situation essentially becomes an orgy of broken minds and hearts. This as good and creepily understated a film as Alfred Hitchcock ever made. A must see.
"He may be a servant, but he's still a human being."
When upper class gent Tony (James Fox) returns to London from Africa, he acquires a house, and he also advertises for a manservant. Hugo Bennett (Dirk Bogarde) applies and is speedily employed. At first, he is the perfect servant. He's quiet, obsequious and efficient. Tony's girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig), however finds Hugo sneaky and suspicious, and she considers the entire notion of having a manservant archaic.
"The Servant", directed by Joseph Losey, is based on a Harold Pinter play and is a perfect example of the Hegel theory of the master-slave relationship. Hegel's theory is that both the master and slave are inevitably corrupted by the unhealthy mutual need in this relationship. The relationship between Tony and Hugo is the main focus of the film, and Pinter's screenplay is a scathing metaphor for the class war. The relationship between Tony and Hugo swings wildly from cutting, humiliating, gratuitous comments, to fumbled attempts at friendship. But with such inequities in position alone, any attempt at some sort of equality is ludicrous. The roles of exploiter and the exploited switch back and forth between Tony and Hugo as the power base in the household moves.
Dirk Bogarde is phenomenal as Hugo. The role of the servant was made for his incredible acting ability. Hugo is, at first, a dreadful toady, but is soon revealed as opportunistic, sly and depraved. His role is in complete contrast to Tony, played by James Fox--who is effete, helpless and malleable. The two main female roles are also in contrast to one another. Vera (Sarah Miles) is the seductive, giggly working class girl whose free sexuality is the opposite of the ice maiden, Susan, who doles out favours as they are merited. The film, a three British Academy Award winner, is a little dated, but it still packs a powerful punch with its unsettling storyline--displacedhuman
Simone Signoret won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of an unhappily married woman who, clutching at a last chance at happiness, falls head over heals in love with a fiery, social climbing schemer from the North Country. It really is an astounding performance - sensitive, sensual, and eloquent and also heartbreaking in its emotional ferocity.
Indeed, Room At The Top is a ferocious film, full of angry, dissolute people who are still shell-shocked, benumbed, and staggering from world War 11. Post war British society was in tatters, poverty was rife, and the upper classes were desperately trying to hang into life of pre-war privilege. Out of this bitter realization, emerged a generation of broken, angry young men who stepped out into a world that no longer had unlimited... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Simone Signoret - Laurence Harvey Director(s): Jack Clayton DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Dirk Bogarde risked his career to make this 1962 film about a lawyer who risks his career to stand up to blackmailers. Part crime thriller and part plea for tolerance, Victim uses the terror of a blackmailing ring to point out the injustice of Britain's antisodomy laws. Bogarde plays Melville Farr, a married lawyer who learns of a blackmail scheme when one of its victims, an old friend, commits suicide rather than tell the police. As Farr conducts an investigation, he must confront his own past. Victim was ahead of its time--it was the first English-language movie to use the word "homosexual"--and as such it seems quaint and stilted at times. Straw-man clichés about homosexuality must be knocked down, and, like in all first-wave issue movies, occasionally characters... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dirk Bogarde - Sylvia Syms Director(s): Basil Dearden DVD Release Date: Released the 21 January 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dirk Bogarde Director(s): Luchino Visconti DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is one of a group of so called 'kitchen sink dramas' which dominated British cinema in the early sixties. What these films brought to the screen for the first time were realistic portrails of British and in particular English working class life. This to my mind was the golden age of British film making with pictures like, This Sporting Life, Billy Liar, A Kind of Loving, Alfie, Up the Junction and Kess showing ordinary people struggling to make the best of their lot. This mood was also reflected on British TV with shows like Z Cars, Play for Today and even the early Coronation Street.
The best of this genre is Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. One thing most of these films have in common is that the hero trys to escape the limitation of his... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Karel Reisz DVD Release Date: Released the 05 February 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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