Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Astonishing piece of art, in which it describes with great accuracy, the clear difference between social classes, and at the same time, the different behaviors that holds the four main characters.The psychological burden of the film is high, and ultimately is about interaction in personal relationships.The script is simple, but it is so carefully planned, that there is a constant feeling of restlessness from the beginning. This effect is emphasized thanks to a superb actors performance.As sometimes occurs, things are not what they seem at first. Psychological manipulation between the two main characters is masterfully made, and changes the course of the film in a radical way.9/10

The book of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die has been a useful companion to me and helped me find hundreds of films I otherwise would not have heard or cared about necessarily, this film was naturally one I had never heard of, but I was keen to see what it was about. Basically young wealthy aristocrat Tony (James Fox) has moved to London, and recently he has hired manservant Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) for all his services at home, and his employee seems reliable, loyal and competent. Tony's girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig) does not like Barrett being in the house and wants him to be sent away, and it only gets worse when the servant's sister Vera (Sarah Miles) comes to live and work as the house, and Tony has a secret affair with her. Tony and Susan leave the house in the care of Barrett and his sister while they go to stay with some friends outside of the city, and when they return they find that the siblings are in fact, therefore they are fired, and Susan breaks up with her boyfriend due to his infidelity. Later Tony decides he does still need a hand in the house, so secretly in a pub he and Barrett talk and he rehires him, and this ignites the real intentions for the servant, he plans to slowly manipulate his employer so that he will insist on needing him and break down until their roles are reversed, so he will be the master. Also starring Catherine Lacey as Lady Mounset, Richard Vernon as Lord Mounset, Ann Firbank as Society Woman, Doris Knox as Older Woman, Patrick Magee as Bishop and Harold Pinter (also writing) as Society Man. Bogarde is obviously the big reason to see this film with his pretty chilling performance as the butler-type playing mind games on his master to rule the roost, I will confess I didn't understand everything in terms of how the villain tricks the boss to go mad and collapse, but I did like how nasty he was in the right moments, it is an interesting enough psychological drama. Good!

Barrett(Bogarde) starts working as a servant for the aristocratic and flamboyant playboy, Tony(Fox), and over time, their relationship changes and they swap roles and the balance of power is successfully shifted. The acting is incredible, with both of these leads, as well as the women they are joined by, Vera(Miles), Hugo's sister, and Susan(Craig), the master's girlfriend, who has shares a mutual resentment with the titular personage, all delivering subtle, vivid and impactful performances. Only gradually do we realize what is actually going on, and both when we think one thing and find out another, we believe these people. The hints of homosexuality are well-handled and add another layer to the manipulation. This is about the English class system and its imminent dissolution(at the time of its production), and I understand that it's not the only of such by Losey. With moody lighting, clever, lingering filming(with some nicely set up shots that show a mirror image or shadow) and smooth editing, this is expertly put together. The tension is smothering in how thick and prevalent it is. All of the music is perfectly chosen, changing in tone with the interiors of the newly furnished and painted house, as the alteration takes place. It's a very sensuous and sexy movie, without being explicit. The DVD comes with an interesting 21 minute Ian Christie's analysis of the picture(an interview intercut with clips), a 3 minute theatrical trailer, and a moderately sized photo gallery. I recommend this to anyone mature enough to appreciate it. 8/10

Not only Hugo Barrett, the Bogarde character, but also Pinter, Losey, and Maugham, Somerset's young nephew, combine most effectively and unpleasantly in producing this dirty little story. It has made at least one person want to take a cleansing shower after watching it. Two, in fact. Another person is left with a creepy, nasty feeling; although they also seem to think it excellent. It's very obviously well-constructed, cunning, subtle and clever.Bogarde slips into his slimy character's skin so perfectly that it fits him like a glove. He first appears on the doorstep as a sort of neo-vampire, setting out to suck his hapless victim dry, and strip him of every shred of dignity. A major flaw in this scenario is that the James Fox character has so little dignity to start with. It is neither moving nor instructive to see an utterly useless self-deluding nonentity reduced from nowhere to nothing. In fact, it is distasteful, off-putting and even disgusting.My disc came with an extra feature in the form of a wordy talk by a man called Ian Christie, described as "Director AHRB for British Film", and who is also, as may be discovered from his devotedly self-regarding fansite, Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London. He comes up with some interesting, but also frequently trite and banal, remarks about this film. He doesn't, however, seem to have a firm grip of his subject. For instance, he presents a photograph of three men in a row, labelled James Fox, Joseph Losey and a third called Dick (sic) Bogarde. The man shown as Dick (sic) Bogarde is actually Harold Pinter, author of at least one great script, called "The Caretaker".Then Christie refers to an otherwise unknown American actor called Rock Hunter, saying "Imagine if Rock Hunter had played a part like the one played by Bogarde?" I imagine he would have been successful. After that, Christie says (twice) that the first film directed by Dick Lester with the Beatles was called "Help", 1965. Some of us, not film professors, thought it was "A Hard Day's Night", 1964. In that film a man on a train from Liverpool to London is mocked for having fought in WW2. Christie thinks this happened in "Help". Someone at Studio Canal might have helped Christie with the text of his feature before sending it out to the world.For the record, the actor Dirk Bogarde's real name was Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde. A man with a name like that deserves several servants. The Beatles were a forgettable pop group, accurately described by Cassius Clay, who met them just before his sensational and memorable 1964 defeat of Sonny Liston, as a bunch of little sissies.Christie points out, what most viewers recognise, that there is a semi-submerged homosexual sub-text to "The Servant". Among the puzzles posed by this movie is how a world so often described as gay could consist of such deeply depressing misery. Presumably because its gaiety is diagnosed as repressed. The servant also acts as a nanny to his enfeebled employer, dosing him with what looks like Dr Collis Browne's medical compound of laudanum, cannabis and chloroform. The film should evoke a response from homophobes, a word not only etymologically specious and incorrect, but also demonstrating political incorrectness.If I weren't so sickened and repelled by the whole performance, I'd give it more stars than seven. I'd seen it when it first came out, and recalled that I hadn't liked it. All I really remembered about it was the rather silly and pointless Cropper joke at the beginning.Finally, it doesn't seem to be primarily about either repressed queerness, or class warfare, but about the ancient truism that when men seek power the search becomes evil and corrupting. Some time after this film was made, James Fox split with Sarah Miles and got religion.