the hireling

Director: alan bridges

Actor: robert shaw,sarah miles,peter egan,caroline mortimer

Data Published: Thu Jul 19 1973

Genres: Drama

Key Words: chauffeur,automobile,car,period drama,unrequited love

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070180/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hireling

Description: The Hireling is a movie starring Robert Shaw, Sarah Miles, and Peter Egan. A young British woman suffering from depression over the loss of her husband develops an unusual relationship with her chauffeur.

Plot: Set in and around Bath, Somerset, immediately after the First World War, the story opens at an expensive mental clinic in the country where the young and recently widowed Lady Franklin is being discharged. The owner of a smart hire car, former sergeant-major Ledbetter, chauffeurs her to her unsympathetic mother in Bath. Hired to take her on outings, he becomes the only person she can talk to as she slowly lifts out of deep depression. When he takes her to a boxing night at a boys club that he helps to run, she meets another committee member, the young former officer Cantrip. Like Ledbetter he is struggling to return to normality, in his case politics, after his traumatic experiences in the war. Cantrip starts wooing the wealthy Lady Franklin while still sleeping with his lover Connie, who is probably a war widow. Ledbetter's mental equilibrium becomes progressively more fragile. His business is failing, his casual relationship with the waitress Doreen brings no joy, his now deep affection for Lady Franklin is no longer returned and his rage against his more successful rival is intensified by Cantrip's concealed involvement with Connie. When he finally confronts Cantrip and Lady Franklin together, they tell him that he has no place in their lives because they have become engaged. Leaping into his Rolls-Royce car and swigging frequently from a bottle of alcohol, he drives away in a suicidal rage.