Film Forum

(1963, Joseph Losey) Upper-crust James Fox thinks he’s found a “treasure” in new butler Dirk Bogarde, then starts checking out Bogarde’s steamy sister Sarah Miles. Losey’s first collaboration with playwright Harold Pinter, here in a cameo as “Society Man.” DCP. Approx. 116 mins.

Reviews

“A brilliant, subversive account of class relations and the changing times.”
– The Guardian

“A perfect storm of perversity, pre-Persona identity transference, prole pole-positioning and mutually assured psychological destruction, Joseph Losey’s masterpiece immediately transformed the director from has-been Hollywood exile to European auteur. Everything hits just the right note of louche Britannia, from Losey and cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s visual expressionism (warped reflections abound; stairwell shadows look like prison bars) to screenwriter Harold Pinter’s pause-as-power-play dialogue to the actors’ character assassinations on class assumptions…Did we mention that the film also features the most gothic orgy in the history of cinema? No need to thank us. We’re at your service.”
– David Fear, Time Out

“Studied and smooth.”
– Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

“[A] hothouse of free-floating perversity.”
– Slant