The Servant (1963)

Director:

Joseph Losey

Writers:

Robin Maugham (novel)
Harold Pinter (writer)

Release Date:

16 March 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The aristocratic Tony moves to London and hires the servant Hugo Barrett for all services at home. Barrett seems to be a loyal and competent employee...

Plot Keywords:

Maid | Sadomasochism | Jazz Music | Homoerotic | Bachelor

Awards:

Won 3 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 4 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Dirk Bogarde	...	Hugo Barrett
Sarah Miles	...	Vera
Wendy Craig	...	Susan
James Fox	...	Tony
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	...	Man in Pub
Hazel Terry	...	Woman in Bedroom
Philippa Hare	...	Girl in Bedroom
Dorothy Bromiley	...	Girl in Phone Box
Alison Seebohm	...	Girl in Pub
Chris Williams	...	Cashier in Coffee Bar
Gerry Duggan	...	Waiter
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Dankworth	...	Jazz Band Leader (uncredited)
Harriet Devine	...	Girl (uncredited)
Davy Graham	...	Guitarist (uncredited)
Colette Martin	...	Girl (uncredited)
Joanna Wake	...	Girl (uncredited)
Bruce Wells	...	Sidewalk Painter (uncredited)

Directed by
Joseph Losey

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Robin Maugham		novel "The Servant"
Harold Pinter		writer

Produced by
Joseph Losey	....	producer
Norman Priggen	....	producer

Original Music by
John Dankworth

Cinematography by
Douglas Slocombe

Film Editing by
Reginald Mills

Production Design by
Richard Macdonald

Set Decoration by
Ted Clements

Costume Design by
Beatrice Dawson

Makeup Department
Joyce James	....	hair stylist
Bob Lawrance	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Teresa Bolland	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Roy Stevens	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Buster Ambler	....	sound recordist
John Cox	....	sound supervisor
Gerry Hambling	....	sound editor

Camera and Electrical Department
Frank Howard	....	camera grip
Chic Waterson	....	camera operator

Music Department
David Lindup	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Pamela Davies	....	continuity
Geoff Freeman	....	unit publicist (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Springbok Productions

Distributors

• Elstree Distributors (1963) (UK) (theatrical)
• Landau Releasing Organization (LRO) (1964) (USA) (theatrical)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1977) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

30 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London, England, UK

Company:

Springbok Productions

Trivia:

Wendy Craig replaced an actress who had to drop out because she was pregnant.

Goofs:

Continuity: when the two main characters play in the stair, the servant shots a vase with the ball, it falls down and breaks on the floor. The next shot, you can see the bottom of the wrecked vase on the shelf it was on the first place (the rest of the vase is downstairs).

Soundtrack:

All Gone

Interiors

The first of three successful collaborations of the playwright Harold Pinter with director Joseph Losey, "The Servant", from a story by Robin Maugham, is an elegant, chilly chamber piece featuring a career-defining performance from Dirk Bogarde. Tony (James Fox) has just moved into a large London townhouse and employs Barrett (Bogarde) to be his 'manservant', somebody to look after the house, cook for him, do the cleaning, just about everything in fact. Tony has money but, despite vague talk of a big project in South America, very little motivation for work of any kind. He's ripe for corruption, and that's exactly what the insidious Barrett sets about doing, with a little help from his 'sister' Vera (a kitten-ish Sarah Miles).

At the start of the film Tony is luxuriating in the empty house. It is yet to be decorated or furnished. It is like the house in the Biblical parable, swept clean and in order, but vulnerable to a demonic infestation worse than anything that has gone before. In fact we know little of what has gone before in Tony's life, but he's clearly led something of a playboy existence and seems on the surface to be serious about settling down with his latest flame Susan (Wendy Craig, British TV sitcom queen, not quite convincing as an insecure ice queen here). But it's Tony's essential insouciance, his lack of moral engagement, that makes him so vulnerable to the amoral Barrett.

Pinter's screenplay is characteristically terse and laced with menace. The movie has an avant garde quality which rears up periodically, in particular in a downright weird scene in a restaurant in which we catch bizarre snatches of conversation from the other diners (including Pinter himself in a cameo appearance) that evidently have nothing to do with the actual plot, but effectively ratchet up the sense of unease and displacement that the audience is already experiencing. Losey's visual compositions are throughout quite exceptional. He makes stunning use of the interior space of what is, in the end, a fairly ordinary house, with shadows and light, open and half-open doorways and stark camera angles providing an ever-shifting perspective on events. The house seems to be involved in an ongoing transformation of itself, so that it never looks quite the same from one sequence to the next. It may be just an illusion, but I was never entirely sure what door would open onto what room or hallway. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe's contribution is hard to overestimate, his black and white imagery quite masterly.

In the end, however, "The Servant" is very much Bogarde's film. Quite unrecognisable from the dashing young hero of postwar British popular cinema, he imbues Barrett with a malevolent campiness that conceals a seething bitterness and rage. Fox, in his first major role, is a superb foil as his uncomprehending victim. The one question not to ask about what happens in "The Servant" is 'why?' A satire on the class system in which the tables are turned on the complacent rich by the angry working class, it unfolds like a pre-determined morality play, each character fulfilling an archetypal function that seems to transcend purely rational analysis.