Watch out, spoilers!
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I love Joseph Lowsey’s films, and one of them that made a big impression on me was Joseph Lowsey’s The Servant in 1963.
A young English aristocrat, Tony (James Fox), buys himself a house in London and hires Barrett’s servant (Dirk Bogard). He makes "Napoleonic" plans to build cities in Brazil, meets a pretty and smart girl Susan (Wendy Craig). At first, Barrett, who looks modest, gradually begins to behave differently from a servant, but Susan felt dislike for him from the very beginning. But the spinless Tony does not notice something like this and more and more gets into the network of manipulations of Barrett, who is joined by his fiancée Vera (Sarah Miles), seducing Tony from place to career, with the knowledge of Barrett, of course. Even after kicking him out, Tony can not resist his request to “give him another chance”, Barrett, accidentally meeting him in a pub, immediately makes up a heartbreaking story, but in fact he wants to finish what he started and behaves more and more brazenly every day. In the end, Tony is completely destroyed as a person, he is completely degraded.
The film is actually very good, especially good, of course, Bogard in the role of Barrett, with this role essentially beginning a string of outstanding subsequent roles. James Fox at times looked next to him a little theatrical, a little artificial looked his body language, gestures. Excellent camera work, the film is black and white.