I was talking with a friend who was recently getting into improv and they recommended ((( Harold Pinter ))) and two of his plays that were turned into movies.
>The Birthday Party (1968)
This one was directed by William Friedkin, a few years before he released the all-time classic, The Exorcist. It was a passion project of his that saw a box office failure, but he considered it a great piece to the end.
The movie (and play) follow Stanley, a destitute man living at a boarding house (?) run by a mentally-challenged woman and her husband. When two men come to call, Stanley panics.
This was the first Pinter movie I watched and his style is something. It's abbreviated as "comedy of menace" where you see escalating tension, only for it to end in comedic relief. The one that stuck out the most was when the two guys, a Jew and an Irishman, start interrogating Stanley in an intense scene. They are questioning what he did to his wife, what he's been doing, before devolving into yelling at him about why the chicken crossed the road. I mean, yeah, the scene was intense, but that comedy was not blended in well. There is also a lot left up to what exactly happened, meaning that the plot is secondary to the acting that is going on. I won't deny the acting was good, with great performances from everyone. But the movie felt fairly slow and I thought it was going to end earlier than it actually did. Granted, I watched it in two parts and was exhausted for the second half, so that could have played a part.
PETEY, FRIED BREAD.
>The Caretaker (also known as The Guest) (1963)
While this one came first in terms of film, it came later as a play for Pinter. This movie was also another passion project, where six of the crew members (including the three actors) didn't take payment. It was also financed by several people, including Peter Sellers and Elizabeth Taylor.
The plot for this one follows a man who takes in a homeless man after being nearly killed in a bar fight. The man attempts to care for the vagabond, with the saintly man's younger brother stepping in to question the homeless man's tactics.