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Joseph Losey (1909-1984)



"Films can illustrate our existence. They can distress, disturb and provoke people into thinking about themselves and certain problems.. but not give the answers."

Filmography

Features
The Boy with Green Hair (1948)
The Lawless (1950)
The Prowler (1951)
M (1951)
The Big Night (1951)
Stranger on the Prowl (1952)
The Sleeping Tiger (1954)
A Man on the Beach (1955)
The Intimate Stranger (1956)
Time Without Pity (1957)
The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958)
First on the Road (1959)
Blind Date (1959)
The Criminal (1960)
Eva (1962)
These Are the Damned (1963)
The Servant (1963)
King & Country (1964)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
Accident (1967)
Boom! (1968)
Secret Ceremony (1968)
Figures in a Landscape (1970)
The Go-Between (1970)
The Assassination of Trotsky (1972)
A Doll's House (1973)
Galileo (1975)
The Romantic Englishwoman (1975)
Mr. Klein (1976)
Les routes du sud (1978)
Don Giovanni (1979)
La Truite (1982)
Steaming (1985)

Shorts
"Pete Roleum and His Cousins" (1939) — Part 1; Part 2
"Youth Gets a Break" (1941)
"A Child Went Forth" (1941)
"Crime Does Not Pay No. 46: A Gun in His Hand" (1945)
"Leben des Galilei" (1947)

Books/Articles
The Cinema of Joseph Losey by James Leahy (1967)
Losey on Losey edited by Tom Milne (1968)
Conversations with Losey by Michael Ciment (1985)
Joseph Losey by Edith de Rahm (1991)
The Films fo Joseph Losey by James Palmer and Michael RIley (1993)
Joseph Losey: A Revenge on Life by David Caute (1994)
Joseph Losey by Colin Gardner (2004)

Web Resources
1982 interview with Jason Weiss, Cineaste
"Double Play: Joseph Losey" by Richard Combs, Film Comment (2004)
"Joseph Losey's Rebirth in Britain" by David Thomson, The Guardian (2009)
"Man Out of His Element: Joseph Losey in the 1960s" by Matt Carlin, MUBI (2018)
"Director: How Britain Saved Hollywood Refugee Joseph Losey" by Adam Smith, The Telegraph (2019)

Forum Discussion
Joseph Losey on DVD
154 Time Without Pity
Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966)
Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968)
155 Secret Ceremony

For those in San Francisco, the Castro theater is playing a double feature of Eva and Secret Ceremony this Wednesday (4/9), although anyone from here who frequents this forum probably already knew that.

The long OOP soundtrack to Boom! is now available.

A complete Losey retrospective at the Harvard Film Archive in Boston started July 12th.

About a year ago, Stefan Andersson posted this on a thread about Masters of Cinema speculation:

The 2007 resto of Losey´s EVA, some nine minutes longer than the Kino on Video resto, would look great in the MoC line!
It showed at the London Film Festival in 2007 but nobody discusses it. The Royal Belgian Cinematheque handled it and told me the restored scenes were in different places in the film, so should contribute to the overall understanding of the film.

From what I understand (I haven't seen this film yet), the Kino release of Eva from 2000 offers two cuts - the 100 minute American cut and the 119 minute European cut (which was presented in a tattered print with burnt-in Swedish subtitles). According to the above quote, this 2007 restoration is 128 minutes, which is the closest we've come to Losey's original (which was roughly 155 minutes). Seriously, this film deserves a treatment akin to Touch of Evil or Mr. Arkadin. Is Kino holding onto this, or are there other possibilities?

Any thoughts on Eva and the two cuts on the Kino release?

Obviously I can't comment on the longer 129 minute cut but I can say the Kino version at 120 minutes is atrocious visual quality and completely at odds qualitatively with a UK VHS tape I used to have of the same version which was realtively pristine.

Interesting. Apparently, the US version looks beautiful on the Kino, but the longer cut is from a poor source.

Does anybody know which version of Eva is included in the UK "Joseph Losey Collection" box set?

A 105 minute cut

A review of the 2007 restoration of Losey's Eva, which runs 128 minutes.

Sight & Sound goes Losey crazy this month. The have an essay on the working relationship between Losey and Pinter, and a brief piece on the ads he shot between pictures.

BFI Southbank has a two month season on Losey; everything and anything. I've only seen The Servant and The Go Between, so much so catch up with.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Sight & Sound goes Losey crazy this month. The have an essay on the working relationship between Losey and Pinter, and a brief piece on the ads he shot between pictures.

How does the UK disc of Time Without Pity compares to the Homevision disc?

I love his 'The Prowler' but while my recent, second, viewing of 'The Criminal' from my newly-purchased Losey box-set caused me to re-assess it upwards, somewhat, I can't say that I now love it.
There's just a certain coldness, a calculation about it, and its not helped by the fact that Stanley Baker doesn't just do it for me
(which perhaps might help explain why Sean Connery made it, internationally, and Baker remained somewhat marginalised).

I think next up from that set will be 'Eva', which I've never seen

Kino Slang juxtaposes Losey's The Lawless and a critical reaction to Tashlin.

So everyone is aware, you can now stream The Lawless on netflix instant.

Should the initial post be updated with the new DVD from UCLA of The Prowler, etc?

Time Without A Pity and The Boy With Green Hair have R2 Odeon releases. Is The Boy With The Green Hair worth owning btw?

Does anyone have an idea of how much of Steaming was really overseen by Losey? He died more than a full year prior to its release, and
I was curious to see how much had been filmed/edited prior to his passing. It's usually seen as a "minor" work, but I'm quite fond of it and Nell Dunn's play.

Edith de Rham’s 1991 biography of Joseph Losey details the struggle of filming Steaming. He was seriously ill with cancer and also broke his knee and had to direct in a wheelchair lifted by a forklift truck on to the raised set (281). The book describes how Losey flew to New York with a “final cut of Steaming [that only] lacked music and post synch, so that it could be given a special showing for the distributers” (282). Losey and Diana Dors, who also died before the release of the film, were both involved in the early stages of promoting the film in America. So it would appear that despite his illness he did largely oversee the completion the film.

Craig Wallace wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:55 pm Edith de Rham’s 1991 biography of Joseph Losey details the struggle of filming Steaming. He was seriously ill with cancer and also broke his knee and had to direct in a wheelchair lifted by a forklift truck on to the raised set (281). The book describes how Losey flew to New York with a “final cut of Steaming [that only] lacked music and post synch, so that it could be given a special showing for the distributers” (282). Losey and Diana Dors, who also died before the release of the film, were both involved in the early stages of promoting the film in America. So it would appear that despite his illness he did largely oversee the completion the film.

Thank you for your thorough response. I guess I need to throw that biography into my always expanding too-read queue.

Finally watched the Kino blu of The Romantic Englishwoman after having bought it over a year ago. Solid, natural-looking transfer which nicely showcases Losey's always-elegant compositions and Gerry Fisher's photography.

I enjoyed this film much more 2nd time around, after having seen it as a younger man 20 years ago in a film class. The humor and gentle mockery of upper-class ennui (Losey's trademark theme) made me laugh out loud multiple times. Helmut Berger is very funny as a high-society hustler with a Zen outlook on life and work. His dry indifference contrasts nicely with the self-regarding neuroses on display from Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson. The plot is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be. It's a writer's jealous fantasy. This is the closest Losey ever came to a real comedy--though cruel humor pervades much of Losey's best work.

It's interesting that many lesser Losey films have received HD releases in recent years--Secret Ceremony, Galileo, Modesty Blaise, Steaming, King & Country--but we're still waiting for American HD releases of The Servant, The Go-Between, and Mr. Klein. Losey is long overdue to enter the Criterion Collection. Any of those titles would be a worthy addition.

Am I misremembering that The Servant is rumored to be with Criterion or at least some boutique company stateside? I thought I also recalled Mr. Klein being hinted as coming soon too.

Rialto has Mr. Klein, and their 4K restoration of it played at a festival here earlier this year. Should be coming from Criterion eventually (although they always seem to take their time with Rialto titles).

Thanks, soundchaser, it was that restoration I was thinking of. I'm probably the only person who doesn't love that film, but my viewing was from a rough DVD copy and I'd like to give it another try in better condition.

Should provide an opportunity for a career-retrospective extra on Losey, which I'm surprised Indicator haven't done yet. I will preemptively say that I remember the restoration being pretty teal...

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 10:18 pm Thanks, soundchaser, it was that restoration I was thinking of. I'm probably the only person who doesn't love that film, but my viewing was from a rough DVD copy and I'd like to give it another try in better condition.

The restoration is on the Criterion Channel, so you can rewatch it on there if you want.

The Sleeping Tiger was a disappointment- Losey is very much inching toward the ambitions that his Pinter collabs would later fulfill, but the script isn't grey enough to produce a tone the actors can work with effectively. The premise is silly, yet within that skeleton of extremist psychological experimentation, the role-blending has potential in exposing raw cores of desire in dom/sub social and romantic relationships, and even fairly-drawn ingrained rationals for self-destructive behavior through the Bogarde character. Unfortunately, the film forsakes the surrealistic edge it needs, and it doesn't earn the character changes for either main principal, neither Bogarde toward redemption (though he does his best) or Alexis Smith toward her dark side of narcissistic self-actualization.

The film seems built around its denouement, reminding me of Vertigo's shocking final image on paper, where Bogarde should reinforce his trauma after finally making progress in therapy and moving through his shell into vulnerability. It doesn't play out that way though, due to a hasty script and unearned development via Smith's histrionic witch shattering guided empathy, and Bogarde's ostracizing antihero that the film never really bothers to warm up to in a way that invites the audience in, despite the clear intention from the narrative trajectory and physical engagement on screen. It feels like a confused film with different variables working in constant friction with each other, and not in a way that services some enigmatic nucleus of a psychological schema. I can't help but feel that if Pinter lended a hand, or if this was made a decade later in Losey's career, the flaws would be polished over with abstract elisions signifying deep emotional payoffs. Instead it's all played too straight, loose, and disinterested, and suffers for it.