Joseph Losey's superb 1963 film about class and sex is once again in cinemas – but to locate its elusive gay gene, you have to revisit its source in Robin Maugham's extraordinary and disturbing novella
Homosexuality is everywhere and nowhere in The Servant. Harold Pinter's superbly controlled, elliptical, menacing dialogue is able to hint, to imply, to seduce, to repulse, in precisely the manner that gay men were forced to adopt in 1963, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence, and when representing homosexuality on screen was forbidden. To locate the gay gene in The Servant, you have to go back to its source, the 1948 novella written by Robin Maugham, the nephew of W Somerset Maugham. The Servant has its spark in an extraordinary event in Maugham's own life, to be treasured by connoisseurs of British sex and class.
Maugham had rented a house, which came with its own servant,...
Homosexuality is everywhere and nowhere in The Servant. Harold Pinter's superbly controlled, elliptical, menacing dialogue is able to hint, to imply, to seduce, to repulse, in precisely the manner that gay men were forced to adopt in 1963, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence, and when representing homosexuality on screen was forbidden. To locate the gay gene in The Servant, you have to go back to its source, the 1948 novella written by Robin Maugham, the nephew of W Somerset Maugham. The Servant has its spark in an extraordinary event in Maugham's own life, to be treasured by connoisseurs of British sex and class.
Maugham had rented a house, which came with its own servant,...
- 3/27/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Basil Dearden, recently celebrated with an Eclipse box set of his London crime dramas, was almost unique in the early part of his career (the forties and fifties) for trying to look at working-class life in Britain and examine the issues affecting it. Unlike the later "kitchen sink" realist films of the sixties, mainly adapted from plays and novels, Dearden tended to work from original screenplays, and he tended to use genre to sweeten the pill of social commentary.
Violent Playground (1958) is one of his best, and it shows both the strengths and weaknesses of Dearden's approach in great detail. One of the director's quirks, picked up at Ealing, was a fondness for films which interwove multiple storylines (Train of Events, Pool of London), rather like John Sayles, allowing a panoply of a particular time and place to emerge, but sadly limiting the development of each storyline. Fortunately, in Violent Playground,...
Violent Playground (1958) is one of his best, and it shows both the strengths and weaknesses of Dearden's approach in great detail. One of the director's quirks, picked up at Ealing, was a fondness for films which interwove multiple storylines (Train of Events, Pool of London), rather like John Sayles, allowing a panoply of a particular time and place to emerge, but sadly limiting the development of each storyline. Fortunately, in Violent Playground,...
- 8/2/2012
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.