Word: barrett
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Mephistopheles is Barrett, the manservant (Dick Bogarde). Barrett comes with the townhouse, helps furnish it, and regulates its life. He knows about decorating, about souffles, about art, about Tony. A fawning gentleman's gentleman, Bogarde's Barrett always has a mysterious half-smile; he is just a bit too eager. To Tony, Barrett's punctiliousness gives order to his days of boredom. To Barrett, Tony is a person to be manipulated, yet manipulated for what...
...Barrett's growing ascendence is always challenged by Susan, Tony's fiance (Wendy Craig). At first Tony to her is pretty much of a bore, although good family, good match, and all. She controls him, even calls him a fool. But Barrett upsets her mastery, undermines her confidence; he irritates because he knows more about wines and paintings, he interrupts a tete a tete, mains a jambes in Tony's study, and his seductive offers of stability and the seductress whom he offers woo Tony away from her. Tony is unimportant, but her pride is up; she must defeat Barrett...
...movie's climatic scene, Susan seems to have won; she has convinced Tony to take her home a little friendly bundling. But master's bed is filled; Barrett is wenching after hours. Flabbergasted and befuddled, Tony cannot bring himself to fire the man who props up his lie until Susan humiliates him. Even then Barrett has the final word as he reveals Tony's affair with the very girl who shares the servant's--er, master's bed. Susan having won has lost; Tony's weakness is so appalling she leaves him to disintegrate...
Losey should have stopped here. Although it would have been a limited statement--the downfall of a weak man--it would have been unified and taut. But in the final thirty minutes he drags Tony down into hell and drags the film down with him. Barrett is taken back by Tony who desperately needs him. The reversal is made explicit; Tony waits on him, cringes from him, plays childish games with him. But Tony's demise is no longer very interesting, and so we question Barrett's motives. Questioning, however, is fruitless. Is Barrett a homosexual? Does he want Tony...
...when Tony's fiancee says tata, and Barrett asserts control of the house, the film gets into trouble. Crucial character changes begin to occur so abruptly that the audience feels cheated. The callow Tony emerges as an alcoholic, displaying a capacity for self-destruction scarcely hinted at before. And suddenly, chillingly, the two men have switched roles. "I couldn't get along without you," Tony whines. And his manservant snarls back: "Then go and get me a glass of brandy-don't just stand there, go and get it!" Another offbeat episode has Tony and Barrett locked...