The Hireling

If you have enjoyed the original Hartley book with its subtleties and irony, then this film is going to be a big disappointment. Although the pace and direction of the screenplay are broadly the same, some of the characters are missing and others have extended roles. The revised finale completely loses the harrowing irony and pathos of the book. Ripe for a Merchant/Ivory production...

"Lady Franklin" (Sarah Miles) is reduced to an emotional black fog following the death of her husband during the War and her close friends seem unable to reach her. It might be that her chauffeur can do that, as she gradually begins to bond with "Steven" (Robert Shaw). He is a fastidious and proud, self-employed, gent who is polite and charming to her. He even lets her sit in the front with him - despite the inappropriateness, familiarity even, of this. She begins to treat him more like a confidant, hiring him more often and spending more time with him for the sake of it. As time progresses, he begins to find himself more drawn to her, but he knows the class divide is immense and that she is also being courted by veteran "Capt. Cantrip" (Peter Egan) whom we can determine fairly easily isn't so much interested in her as in her fortune. What chance the societal norms can be broken? Can anything ever transpire between them? When it comes down to it, does she actually want it to? Shaw and Miles are on great form here. The former delivers a delicately accumulating characterisation of a man conflicted by an innate understanding of his own position in the great scheme of things, but one increasingly infatuated in and concerned for his employer. The latter plays the emotionally disturbed character equally effectively, with a degree of demure frustration that seems to be desperate to break from her shell of conformity, whilst equally addicted to it's security. It's a grand looking production with loads of attention to the detail in the production design, but it is really the cumulating toxicity that emanates from Shaw that seals the seal here, showing the iniquities of the class system don't just work in the one direction.

Another of L.P. Hartley's tales of class and sexual obsession, this one was brought to the screen in 1973 by Alan Bridges, who also made "The Shooting Party", and despite winning three BAFTAs and the Palme D'Or at Cannes has all but disappeared. Like "The Go-Between" this, too, is about a relationship that develops between a titled lady, (Sarah Miles), and a member of the working class, (Robert Shaw), but unlike "The Go-Between", this is a somewhat small-scale affair though psychologically it is just as astute.

It is set in the years after the First World War and Miles is the young widow recovering from a nervous breakdown after the death of her husband and Shaw is the man hired to drive her around and who develops an unhealthy obsession with his employer and they are both superb. The fine supporting cast includes a young Peter Egan as a smug Liberal Member of Parliament and Elizabeth Sellars as Miles' chilly mother while the screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz is typically literate. In fact, you might describe the film itself as chilly. It is certainly old-fashioned but with a degree of frankness that would have been unheard of 20 years earlier and it deserves to be seen.

A British drama; A story about an upper-class widow suffering from depression over the loss of her husband, who develops an unusual relationship with her chauffeur. This is an adaptation of L.P. Hartley's novel. It has a measured pace and a care for the telling detail. It shows the vast barrier between social classes, suppressed sexuality, and of a casualness. One side is cold, yearning for warmth; the other, striving but painfully frustrated yet they give one another the confidence one grants a stranger. Robert Shaw is remarkable as the chauffeur, an ex-sergeant major, ramrod straight, filled with a sense of class and keeping his place. Sara Miles's aristocrat is equally well drawn as the widow, childless, on release from a sanitarium. Their scenes are marked by intriguing sequences: long, uninterrupted car rides through an overcast, rainy Somerset. The work up to the final scenes is gentle and slowly paced to maximise tension. This is a film very well directed, earning the Palme d'Or in 1973.

After watching "The Go-Between", author L.P. Hartley cried, being so moved by the cinematic representation of his novel. Had he been alive he may well have cried after watching "The Hireling" for the way his subtle novel had been vulgarized. But Hartley had died just before "The Hireling" was made and playwright Wolf Mankovwitz felt himself free to do as he pleased with Hartley's book. That in itself seems to be an act of great disrespect and worse, his changes are greatly detrimental to the work. It calls into question just what right does one have to so radically alter a work. There is little doubt that Hartley would ever have agreed to this version.

It's a great pity. The bulk of the film is well done, both Robert Shaw and Sarah Miles delivering strong performances. Adhereing to Hartley novel the overall effect would have so much more compelling.

Not only a disappointment, but a great annoyance at the presumption of lesser artists to tamper with the work of their betters.