Director: Joseph Losey
Running Time: 116 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: April 8th 2013
A couple of days ago I reviewed Accident, the second of three collaborations between director Joseph Losey and writer Harold Pinter. Now it’s time for the first, 1963’s The Servant, a slightly more straightforward film, although still with a biting interest in class and the complexities of relationships between people.
James Fox, in one of his very first movie roles, plays Tony, a young man from an aristocratic family who moves into a house in London and needs a servant. He hires Barrett (Dirk Bogarde), a gentleman’s gentleman who promises to cook and look after Tony. However things get tricky when Tony’s girlfriend, Susan (Wendy Craig), takes an instant dislike to Barrett. The sexual politics are ramped up when Barrett moves his ‘sister’, Vera (Sarah Miles), into the house, with Tony initiating an affair with this woman from far ‘beneath’ his supposed station. [Read more…]
