Robert Shaw (Young Winston) and Sarah Miles (Blowup) star in The Hireling, a devastating exploration of emotional repression, trauma, and class relations from director Alan Bridges (The Shooting Party).
In the years following the First World War, the widowed Lady Franklin (Miles) establishes an unlikely friendship with her working-class driver, Ledbetter (Shaw), a traumatised former sergeant major.
But, as Lady Franklin develops a relationship with a scheming former officer (Peter Egan, Ever Decreasing Circles), Ledbetter’s precarious mental state rapidly deteriorates.
Adapted from the novel by L P Hartley (The Go-Between) by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz (The Two Faces of Dr.
Jekyll), The Hireling was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.
