Robin Maugham Movies
Wealthy wastrel James Fox hires insouciant cockney Dirk Bogarde as a valet. No sooner has he donned his working clothes than Bogarde begins exercising a subtle but insidious control over his master. Suggesting that the house could use a little fixing up, Bogarde convinces Fox to spend a whopping amount of money on it. But this is just a warm-up session for Bogarde, who by mid-film is calling all the shots in the Fox household, all the while pretending to keep his place. Fox's fiance Wendy Craig sees through Bogarde's game. Bogarde then brings his own lady friend Sarah Miles into the house. At Bogarde's insistence, Miles seduces Fox, thereby loosening Craig's hold on the confused young man. And so it goes. The homosexual subtext of The Servant disturbed some of the more hidebound critics of 1963; Harold Pinter based his cryptic screenplay on a novel by Robin Maugham. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, (more)
- 1959
After spending most of the 1950s in Europe, writer/director Robert Siodmak filmed his only picture in England: The Rough and the Smooth (US title: Portrait of a Sinner). Based on a novel by Robin Maugham, the story concerns a young archaeologist (Tony Britton), engaged to marry the daughter (Natasha Parry) of a wealthy publisher (Donald Wolfit). At the last moment, the archaeologist leaves his bride-to-be for a nymphomaniac (Nadja Tiller) with a masochistic streak. He must wrest her away from an abusive relationship with a no-good lout (William Bendix). Even Robert Siodmak was embarrassed by the lunatic excesses of Rough and the Smooth, dismissing the film with "I've seen worse, but not much worse." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nadja Tiller, Tony Britton, (more)
- 1956
Anthony Steel stars in this fanciful wartime drama. Stationed in Libya, British soldier Steel is wounded, then nursed back to health by a band of Nomads. He manages to marry the tribal chieftan's daughter (Anna Maria Sandri) before getting down to the serious business of fending off the Nazis. Ten years afterwards, Steel's brother returns to the tribe, there to take his late father's place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Steel, Donald Sinden, (more)
- 1953
Jack Hawkins plays a former British army officer who is surprised in his home one evening by a burglar. His surprise is compounded when the intruder turns out to be one of the men from his World War II army unit. With the straight-arrow diligence of a wartime commander, Hawkins delves into the unfortunate burglar's past, trying to discover why so promising a soldier hit the skids. The film is not so much a mystery but a genteel expose of the socioeconomic problems facing discharged servicemen in postwar England. The Intruder was adapted by Robin Maugham (son of Somerset Maugham) from his own novel Line on Ginger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Hawkins, Hugh Williams, (more)
