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The Servant
Despite Harold Pinter's fear that Joseph Losey would turn his play into 'a completely homosexual picture', The Servant stands as one of the great critiques of British social and sexual mores. As power relationships between the classes fuel a sexual subtext about dominance and submission which goe...
Extras
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Hobson's Choice
The eldest daughter of a bullish shoemaker decides to set up a rival business with her father's best boot-hand, whom she also intends to marry. Charles Laughton and John Mills play off each other brilliantly as the bullish shop owner and gentle but confident boot-hand in this clever romantic come...
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Pink String and Sealing Wax
Two worlds collide in this melodrama set in Victorian Brighton: a repressive household, run by a tyrannical chemist, and a sleazy tavern, presided over by a passionate landlady. The chemist's son (Gordon Jackson) finds himself, understandably enough, in thrall to the landlady (Googie Withers). Hi...
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The Fallen Idol
Carol Reed followed the success of Odd Man Out (1947) with this adaptation of Graham Greene’s short story, The Basement Room. Young Felipe (a revelatory Bobby Henrey) is a son of a diplomat who is never around, who instead forms a friendship with his butler Baines (Ralph Richardson). Baines impre...
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The Song of the Shirt
The plight of women in the 1840s London rag trade is explored and deconstructed. Informed by experimental film practice and evoking a serialised Victorian novel, this unusual film investigates the effects of protectionist ‘philanthropy' in the sweatshop-style London clothes trade using contempor...
