The Birthday Party (film)
| The Birthday Party | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | William Friedkin |
| Produced by |
Max Rosenberg Milton Subotsky |
| Written by | Harold Pinter |
| Starring |
Robert Shaw Patrick Magee Dandy Nichols Sydney Tafler Moultrie Kelsall Helen Fraser |
| Cinematography | Denys Coop |
| Edited by | Antony Gibbs |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Continental Motion Pictures Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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123 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $640,000 |
| Box office | $400,000 |
The Birthday Party is a 1968 British drama film directed by William Friedkin, and starring Robert Shaw, based on the 1957 play The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. The screenplay for the film was written by Pinter as well. The film, and the play, are considered examples of "comedy of menace", a genre associated with Pinter.
The film was a passion project for Friedkin, who had been a fan of the play, and he remained proud of the film after its release, though it was a box office disappointment.
The protagonist is a lodger in his late 30s named Stanley (Webber), played by Robert Shaw, who is staying at a seaside boarding house; he is visited by two unexpected additional guests, menacing and mysterious strangers, Goldberg (Sydney Tafler) and McCann (Patrick Magee). Their neighbour, Lulu (Helen Fraser) brings her a parcel, a boy's toy drum presented to Stanley as his "birthday present." Goldberg and McCann offer to host Stanley's birthday party after Stanley's landlady, Meg (Boles), played by Dandy Nichols, tells them that it is Stanley's birthday, although Stanley protests that it is really not his birthday. In the course of the party, Goldberg and McCann break Stanley down and ultimately take him away from the house purportedly to get medical attention (from "Monty") in their car. The film ends (as the play ends) after Meg's husband Petey (Moultrie Kelsall), a deckchair attendant, who did not attend the party because he was out playing chess, calls after Stanley, "Stan, don't let them tell you what to do"; at the end, Meg, still somewhat hung over, is unaware that Stanley has been taken away, since Petey has not told her that, and tells him that she was "the belle of the ball."
The movie was a passion project of director William Friedkin who called it "the first film I really wanted to make, understood and felt passionate about". He had first seen the play in San Francisco in 1962, and managed to get the film version funded by Edgar Scherick at Palomar Pictures, in part because it could be made relatively cheaply. Pinter wrote the screenplay himself and was heavily involved in casting. "To this day I don't think our cast could have been improved," wrote Friedkin later.
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