Powell's comment rings true in more ways than one. Clive Donner's film of Harold Pinter's popular play was funded by a set of dedicated and benevolent celebrities, including Peter Sellers and Elizabeth Taylor. A unique and resolute production, it was led by a team of six partners - Pinter and Donner, producer Michael Birkett and actors Donald Pleasence, Alan Bates and Robert Shaw.

The arresting chemistry between the three stars can be accredited in part to the fact that they had previously played their characters onstage together. Although Peter Woodthorpe appeared as Aston in the original Arts Theatre production, Shaw assumed the role on Broadway, alongside Bates and Pleasence.

The Caretaker is a single-minded film, then, but one that has famously opened itself up to many different interpretations. Its set-up is simple. In a café Aston meets Davies, an irascible tramp, and offers him a bed in the house he shares with his brother Mick. The ensuing narrative finds the three embroiled in a complex power struggle.

Both linguistically and thematically this is a perfect introduction to Pinter's early work. Punctuated by heavy, telling silences, the colloquial dialogue is full of threat. Treating potent themes such as territory, deception and self-delusion, the narrative is concerned with role-play as much as role reversal.

In Donner's film, Pinter's three-hander is given a fourth character - the dank, dilapidated house (and specifically the cluttered attic) in which the action unfolds. Using a spare, disquieting score, the film pays close attention to incidental noises in the room, most notably the resonant drips from the attic's leaky roof. Donner's direction, meanwhile, is as claustrophobic as the location. He pins the characters within their surroundings, often capturing them in striking close-ups.

While The Caretaker can truly disturb (witness Aston's mesmerising speech about his treatment) it also offers moments of bizarre comedy, such as Mick unexpectedly pulling a salt pot from his pocket or Aston professing his dislike for drinking Guinness from a thick mug.

Chris Wiegand

Pinter at the BBC homepage