When producer and director Joseph Losey was hospitalized with a brutal case of pneumonia for two weeks during this shoot, Dirk Bogarde continued filming assisted by minute, daily instructions over the phone from Losey's hospital bed. When Losey returned to the set, he did not re-shoot any of the script, much to the relief of cast and crew. Bogarde managed to keep the film on schedule, though he later said the experience made him determined never to direct.
This movie was made on a budget of £135,000. It was a big box-office and art-house hit. Producer and director Joseph Losey later claimed it was the only movie upon which he'd had a percentage of the profits actually to make him some money.
The Servant (1963) was produced and directed by Joseph Losey, an American director who spent the last part of his career and life in England, after being blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s. This is Losey's tenth movie shot in the U.K.
After a directorial career working for MGM and RKO in America, the left-leaning Losey fled to England after the Communist witch-hunt of the Joseph McCarthy era had blacklisted him from working in Hollywood and driven him from the States.
After a directorial career working for MGM and RKO in America, the left-leaning Losey fled to England after the Communist witch-hunt of the Joseph McCarthy era had blacklisted him from working in Hollywood and driven him from the States.
Wendy Craig replaced Vanessa Redgrave, who had to drop out because she was pregnant with her eldest child Natasha Richardson.
Originally planned as a movie by a different director, Michael Anderson. It was he who commissioned Harold Pinter to write the script in 1961. When Anderson dropped out of the project, producer and director Joseph Losey took over and insisted that Pinter's script be extensively re-written. This led to what Losey claimed was their only quarrel in over 20 years of close friendship (but Pinter did do the re-writes).