THE SERVANT (1963)

The young and callow aristocrat Tony (James Fox) seems to have no visible means of support, except for being part of some vague plan to clear jungles in Brazil to build cities. On Tony's first day in his ritzy but empty new townhouse, Barrett (Dirk Bogarde), the manservant he's hired, arrives to find Tony in a sitting room, passed out in the noonday sun. On the surface, their relationship is pretty strictly master and servant, but we can tell from the start that Barrett has designs on Tony, not necessarily sexually, but in terms of power dynamics, with Barrett carefully studying Tony's ways and moods. Barrett gets a bit cocky with Tony, though never enough that Tony feels the need to discipline him—indeed, we get the impression that Tony has very little gumption or is passionate about anything, even seeming rather middling toward his blond upper-class girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig). Soon, Barrett gets Tony to hire Vera (Sarah Miles) as a maid, claiming she's his sister, though we know that she's really Barrett's lover, and soon Tony's lover as well. When Tony and Susan return from a weekend house party, they find Barrett and Vera romping in the master’s bedroom. The truth comes out about Vera, as does the truth about Tony and Vera, leading Susan to leave. Tony fires Barrett who soon comes back groveling for his job. Tony rehires him, but very quickly, in a scene right out of Edward Albee, their roles begin to reverse, with Barrett the strong one and Tony dependent on Barrett.

This psychological thriller, in velvety black & white, is a bit drawn out (the 2 hour movie could stand to be about 15 minutes shorter) but builds a slowly menacing atmosphere. Though we can predict from early on that the servant will gain control of the master, their relationship does go through stages with Tony at one point seeming to shake himself out of monied decadence and stop Barrett's plan. But that turns out to be just a bump in the road to the end which leaves no doubt about who is in control. There is little action here—some reviews refer to an orgy in the film's last section, but it's just hookers lying around a drawing room, mostly drunk or high, with not a speck of flesh or lascivious behavior to be seen—so the acting and camerawork must do the heavy lifting, and for the most part, successfully. Fox (pictured to the left of Bogarde) looks and acts like the perfect stereotype of the upper-class dissipated twit, a bit like Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster if he'd been getting high and was being gaslighted by Jeeves. (I guess at times, Jeeves could be accused of gaslighting Bertie, but for his own good.) Craig, whose character is a little underdone, is fine. Bogarde and Miles both come off as human and even complex, and not just cardboard villains. Most of the movie is set in the townhouse but rarely seems stagy. There are flowers present everywhere but I couldn't decide if that meant something symbolic or not. It's persuasively set in the winter; there is real snow outside and real breath that hangs in the air. A breathy song called "All Gone" sung by Cloe Laine is used effectively throughout, and there's one song performed in a bar by a gruff folk singer that has the line, "Ride me, baby, til my face turns cherry red"—I only know that because I had the subtitles on. [Blu-ray]