Le Concierge

This is an extraordinary film and I have been looking for a tape or DVD for some time. Bates is perfectly cast, Pleasance is ideal and utterly memorable, and Shaw is simply brilliant. It is one of the finest films I've ever seen of it's type. Does anyone know if it's maybe hung up in some sort of litigation or has a property rights thing going? It's a real shame that people who weren't around in the 60's can't see it. I think that in some ways this finds each of the actors and even Pinter at their very best. I recommend this to anyone exploring Schopenhauer, Sartre, Beckett, or Genet. It's in my top 100 films ever made. --tatkhj

Apart from the scenery and huge cast, this has all the ingredients of a Cecil B De Mille epic. Three men, (two of which are brothers and a cunning almost invited guest) struggle for power and dominance in their dingy little house. In my opinion it says something about the predicament of human behaviour what ever their surroundings.Its dark, sometimes funny and you can almost smell the decay.

The Caretaker is a truly great play and lends itself only to minimal tinkering for the screen. Thank goodness, that's what the makers of this film decided to do, so the film is barely an adaptation. One or two short scenes are moved out of Aston's claustrophobic attic room, but for the most part we're stuck in there, just like the play. I'm too young to have seen the original cast on stage, so it is good to see how Alan Bates and Donald Pleasence must have plied their craft on the stage. Robert Shaw does an excellent job of Aston, a part that is often under-rated as it is best performed under-stated. I have seen two fine productions of this play on the stage, back in the 70's I saw Max Wall play the lead and more recently the mighty Michael Gambon supported brilliantly by Rupert Graves as Mick and Douglas Hodge as Aston. If you can get to see a great production of this play, I recommend it for the stage rather than film. In the absence of a fine cast just down the road, this film is a super second best.

Very impressive adaptation of the Harold Pinter play for the screen. Only opened up a couple of times but both turn out to be short but crucial scenes that say all the more for being set outside. The main 'set', however, is the amazingly crushed and crowded room with all its junk, or what could be considered items that might be useful in the future. A cast of three play two crazed brothers and a rather simple but aggressive 'gentleman of the road'. Pleasence plays the tramp and it is a stunning performance, at once cringing and self effacing, yet also wildly defensive and nasty. I had always wondered where the actor had managed to draw his character in Cul de Sac from, this Pinter portrayal would seem to be the answer. Robert Shaw plays the quieter of the two brothers and Alan Bates the more clearly schizoid with wild swings between what might be caring or killing. The succinct and portentous dialogue has echoes of Beckett yet even the darkest and pessimistic of the Irishman's writings resonate with a sense of kindliness towards the desperate characters, not here. However enjoyable it is to watch these three struggle for supremacy in such a forsaken situation, it is without doubt a very jaundiced view of the human psyche on display.

Worth watching just for Robert Shaw's monologue about his mental health. Spellbinding. Obviously filmed during the harsh winter of 62/63 as the snow and ice stubbornly refuses to budge.