Blu-ray Release: The Servant (1963)

By
Laurence
– June 25, 2023Find Others: Blu-ray, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: ,

Blu-ray Release Date: June 20, 2023
Price: Blu-ray $27.99
Studio: Criterion Collection

The prolific, ever provocative Joseph Losey (Mr. Klein, The Lawless, Figujres in a Landscape, The Romantic Englishwoman), blacklisted from Hollywood and living in England, delivered a coolly modernist shock to the system of that nation’s cinema with the 1963 drama The Servant, a mesmerizing dissection of class, sexuality, and power.

A dissolute scion of the upper crust (James Fox, The Russia House) finds the seemingly perfect manservant (a diabolical Dirk Bogarde, during his transition from matinee idol to art-house icon) to oversee his new London town house. But not all is as it seems, as traditional social hierarchies are gradually, disturbingly destabilized.

Lustrously disorienting cinematography and a masterful script by playwright Harold Pinter merge in The Servant, a tour de force of mounting psychosexual menace.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New program on director Joseph Losey by film critic Imogen Sara Smith
  • Rare interview from 1976 with Losey by critic Michel Ciment
  • Interview from 1996 with screenwriter Harold Pinter
  • Interviews with actors Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, and Wendy Craig
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by author Colm Tóibín
Buy or Rent The Servant (1963)

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.