Interesting play by Harold Pinter. Engaging performances by all four. And Helen Mirren looks so attractive here and so young. Directed by Michael Apted with a delightful imaginative shot of Malcolm McDowell cowering on the floor taken from behind Alan Bates' legs towering over McDowell. Best shot in the film.
8 Reviews
Is it better to know or ignore?
pj210522 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
A great piece of acting by all and visual arts from the 70s all have that underlying raw emotional connection, because the things like the internet and mobile phones don't exits .
This is from a play which explains why there are mainly just four actors running the show.
Stella (Helen Mirren) is the wife of James, without any children. She comes across as a bored house wife.
James (Alan Bates) is Stella's husband.
Bill (Malcolm McDowell) is a bored homosexual toy-boy caught up in a relationship he finds stifling and smothering.
Harry (Laurence Olivier) is Bill's older moneybag lover.
The story revolves around a night that Stella and Bill spent together at the Westbury hotel away from where they live. Both Stella and Bill give out suggestions that they may have had sexual relations. There characters like play acting - in the tv show.
There is some comment on the internet that Bill did have the affair with Stella, but the tv show explains to us in many ways he has not.
For an example when Harry says "You know how church bells bother me, don't' they bother you?" and Bill says "I never hear them." Church bells ringing is the sound of people getting married and it bothers Harry because of his underlying fate that that he will never be with a woman. But to Bill 'I never hear them' means he doesn't care about women.
James confronts Bill, asking if he had sex with his wife, Stella. Bill likes playing James along, where there may be a bit of an underlying play on James as a man. As Harry says many times that Bill is from the slums and he likes playing games. Which is what he is doing in this show. Bill does admit "I'm only telling you because I am utterly bored." When Stella says to James (her husband) " I just hoped you understand", and begins to cry. What she is saying that that I thought you'd understand what I was really trying to say and that is 'I wanted you to be jealous and to fight for me.' (in a nutshell she wants her husband to show he loves her) But James doesn't do that.
The show is full of sexual connotations: -Olives signifies sex. James says to Stella do we have any olives and Stella says we have none in the house (they are not having sex). Bill offers James olives but he turns him down.
-Bill telling James regarding having the affair with James' wife - "I just don't do such things". James thinks Bill is saying he doesn't have affairs with other people's wives, but Bill is saying he is gay and therefore, he 'just doesn't do such things' -Bill saying "I'm having cocktails"...."I'm standing for parliament. I'm going to be minister for home affairs". The homosexual connotations of 'cock' in cocktails, and 'home affairs' or homosexual affairs.
-The many references to a knife being a male organ including the knife being in Bill's hand and James telling Bill "lucky it didn't end up in your mouth" -Harry saying to James "Women are very strange. Of course you'd know more about that than I do." The whole tv show comes down to probably the only time anyone is truly honest and that is when Bill tells James the truth about what happened that night with Stella. Bill makes the decision to final telling James the truth because of the insulting way James was dealing with him, Bill wanted to hurt him but saying the truth.
"We didn't do anything. We just sat in the foyer and talked about doing it." This hurts James because during the whole show Stella is making out that 'she was taken advantage of by Bill'. But here Bill admits they did nothing...but they both were thinking about it.
James is not the husband trying to restore the honour of his wife...he has to face that his wife wanted it.
So what does the end mean?
Stella doesn't care that her husband does/or doesn't know the truth. She is sitting in a sexual suggestive pose with the cat when her husband comes to her and there is no suggestion that he intends to ravage her. The tv show doesn't need to tell us anymore because we are adults and can see where this is going.
Her English husband will take the whole affair as the English do. They will carry on as is and ignore what is going on around them (As James said to Harry "I don't think I'll mention this to my wife...forget all about it). And his wife might not have had that affair with Bill but she has given notice to her husband James, that she sure as heck won't be just talking about it next time.
This is from a play which explains why there are mainly just four actors running the show.
Stella (Helen Mirren) is the wife of James, without any children. She comes across as a bored house wife.
James (Alan Bates) is Stella's husband.
Bill (Malcolm McDowell) is a bored homosexual toy-boy caught up in a relationship he finds stifling and smothering.
Harry (Laurence Olivier) is Bill's older moneybag lover.
The story revolves around a night that Stella and Bill spent together at the Westbury hotel away from where they live. Both Stella and Bill give out suggestions that they may have had sexual relations. There characters like play acting - in the tv show.
There is some comment on the internet that Bill did have the affair with Stella, but the tv show explains to us in many ways he has not.
For an example when Harry says "You know how church bells bother me, don't' they bother you?" and Bill says "I never hear them." Church bells ringing is the sound of people getting married and it bothers Harry because of his underlying fate that that he will never be with a woman. But to Bill 'I never hear them' means he doesn't care about women.
James confronts Bill, asking if he had sex with his wife, Stella. Bill likes playing James along, where there may be a bit of an underlying play on James as a man. As Harry says many times that Bill is from the slums and he likes playing games. Which is what he is doing in this show. Bill does admit "I'm only telling you because I am utterly bored." When Stella says to James (her husband) " I just hoped you understand", and begins to cry. What she is saying that that I thought you'd understand what I was really trying to say and that is 'I wanted you to be jealous and to fight for me.' (in a nutshell she wants her husband to show he loves her) But James doesn't do that.
The show is full of sexual connotations: -Olives signifies sex. James says to Stella do we have any olives and Stella says we have none in the house (they are not having sex). Bill offers James olives but he turns him down.
-Bill telling James regarding having the affair with James' wife - "I just don't do such things". James thinks Bill is saying he doesn't have affairs with other people's wives, but Bill is saying he is gay and therefore, he 'just doesn't do such things' -Bill saying "I'm having cocktails"...."I'm standing for parliament. I'm going to be minister for home affairs". The homosexual connotations of 'cock' in cocktails, and 'home affairs' or homosexual affairs.
- Stella's constant companion of a white pussy cat is an indication of her being in heat (even walking around the room with it to sexy jazz music), and wearing red lipstick.
-The many references to a knife being a male organ including the knife being in Bill's hand and James telling Bill "lucky it didn't end up in your mouth" -Harry saying to James "Women are very strange. Of course you'd know more about that than I do." The whole tv show comes down to probably the only time anyone is truly honest and that is when Bill tells James the truth about what happened that night with Stella. Bill makes the decision to final telling James the truth because of the insulting way James was dealing with him, Bill wanted to hurt him but saying the truth.
"We didn't do anything. We just sat in the foyer and talked about doing it." This hurts James because during the whole show Stella is making out that 'she was taken advantage of by Bill'. But here Bill admits they did nothing...but they both were thinking about it.
James is not the husband trying to restore the honour of his wife...he has to face that his wife wanted it.
So what does the end mean?
Stella doesn't care that her husband does/or doesn't know the truth. She is sitting in a sexual suggestive pose with the cat when her husband comes to her and there is no suggestion that he intends to ravage her. The tv show doesn't need to tell us anymore because we are adults and can see where this is going.
Her English husband will take the whole affair as the English do. They will carry on as is and ignore what is going on around them (As James said to Harry "I don't think I'll mention this to my wife...forget all about it). And his wife might not have had that affair with Bill but she has given notice to her husband James, that she sure as heck won't be just talking about it next time.
Pretty good
Jeremy_Urquhart17 April 2024
This is one of them nifty little TV movies, innit, or perhaps some sort of filmed stage play I do say. It is most incredibly English in nature, old sport. You really must know that going in, what with the accents and all the manners of speaking held by these here characters.
And for a short, small film, it does have some right old talent involved; real movie stars on offer here, like Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, and Helen Mirren... though perhaps the last of those was a few years away from stardom, she was.
If you don't have an affinity for something extremely English, I daresay The Collection might well best be avoided. There's a certain tolerance needed for it all; absolutely ghastly some people can live in a place such as England all their lives and always be this way. It might well be, on there other hand, that I am simply too uncouth.
Still, not the worst way to spend an hour, paired with some tea and crumpets and all that.
And for a short, small film, it does have some right old talent involved; real movie stars on offer here, like Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, and Helen Mirren... though perhaps the last of those was a few years away from stardom, she was.
If you don't have an affinity for something extremely English, I daresay The Collection might well best be avoided. There's a certain tolerance needed for it all; absolutely ghastly some people can live in a place such as England all their lives and always be this way. It might well be, on there other hand, that I am simply too uncouth.
Still, not the worst way to spend an hour, paired with some tea and crumpets and all that.
Malcolm McDowell owns this one
atwellw1 May 2008
I had to speak up on behalf of the party who really steals this show.
Among such a cast of titans, it is Malcolm McDowell who is the hypnotic center of this drama. With costars such as Laurence Olivier, Helen Mirren and Alan Bates, this is no mean feat. His is an absolutely stunning performance, full of invisibly subtle shifts from one completely plausible version of events to another.
Seek out "Laurence Olivier Presents"; this set is a treasure. Included are "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "The Collection", "Hindle Wakes", "Come Back Little Sheba", "Saturday, Sunday, Monday", and "The Ebony Tower". I was lucky enough to get a copy from my local public library.
Among such a cast of titans, it is Malcolm McDowell who is the hypnotic center of this drama. With costars such as Laurence Olivier, Helen Mirren and Alan Bates, this is no mean feat. His is an absolutely stunning performance, full of invisibly subtle shifts from one completely plausible version of events to another.
Seek out "Laurence Olivier Presents"; this set is a treasure. Included are "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "The Collection", "Hindle Wakes", "Come Back Little Sheba", "Saturday, Sunday, Monday", and "The Ebony Tower". I was lucky enough to get a copy from my local public library.
Great, smart brilliantly acted Harold Pinter style fun
runamokprods27 February 2011
Terrifically acted by an amazing cast - Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates, Malcolm McDowell, and Helen Mirren - this is a fun, creepy and thought provoking adaptation of the Harold Pinter play.
Not really opened up for TV (it was made for the BBC), more a photographed play. But the writing and acting are so delicious that the rough edged style doesn't matter, as we slowly piece together what did or didn't go on between McDowell and Mirren when they happened to meet at an hotel out of town, and the repercussions on their relationships at home; McDowell with Olivier, Mirren with Bates.
This can be found on DVD in the US as part of the Laurence Oliver Presents collection. You can rent just this disc (which has two plays) at Netflix. In the UK it was released as a stand alone DVD.
Not really opened up for TV (it was made for the BBC), more a photographed play. But the writing and acting are so delicious that the rough edged style doesn't matter, as we slowly piece together what did or didn't go on between McDowell and Mirren when they happened to meet at an hotel out of town, and the repercussions on their relationships at home; McDowell with Olivier, Mirren with Bates.
This can be found on DVD in the US as part of the Laurence Oliver Presents collection. You can rent just this disc (which has two plays) at Netflix. In the UK it was released as a stand alone DVD.
What is the truth?
lousvr9 April 1999
Interesting Pinter teleplay with terrific Olivier,Bates and Mirren. Is she or he lying? What is the truth? Can the truth be known? Is truth/reality objective or subjective?? Haunting. Though, being a British production, difficult to find in the States. Well worth it.
Boredom with 4 great actors!
RodrigAndrisan1 January 2020
Four excellent actors that I love very much: Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Alan Bates. If they were not in the cast, the movie would be
impossible to watch, the script based on Pinter's play is one boredom without equal. The 4 stars are for the 4 actors.
Do you have any Olives ?
leavymusic-212 November 2021
There it is, strange to watch 4 great actors repeating each other's lines and adding strange remakes with one trying to establish if indeed his wife has had a affair with another.
Pinter plays are obviously well received in the day to grab the talents of Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowel and the master of stage & screen Lord Laurence Olivier.
Someone commented that without this cast the whole episode would be unwatchable! Probably I would add unforgivable to the negative.
I've obviously missed something crucial here in failing to appreciate this work of Pinters, it's likely to be the whole style of Pinters work, it left me feeling let down and disappointed, perhaps that's the intention.
I have no idea other than to say fans of the mans work would be able to explain much better what I've missed in this performance.
If you enjoy a operatic, static but curious story then this is for you, if however you need a little more substance and plot then this one will leave you wondering what was the point of any of it.
Pinter plays are obviously well received in the day to grab the talents of Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowel and the master of stage & screen Lord Laurence Olivier.
Someone commented that without this cast the whole episode would be unwatchable! Probably I would add unforgivable to the negative.
I've obviously missed something crucial here in failing to appreciate this work of Pinters, it's likely to be the whole style of Pinters work, it left me feeling let down and disappointed, perhaps that's the intention.
I have no idea other than to say fans of the mans work would be able to explain much better what I've missed in this performance.
If you enjoy a operatic, static but curious story then this is for you, if however you need a little more substance and plot then this one will leave you wondering what was the point of any of it.
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