5.3/10
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8 user 1 critic

Basements (1987)

Adaptations of two early plays, The Room and The Dumb Waiter, by Noble Prize-winning, English playwright Harold Pinter. The first revolves around paranoiac woman trapped in her apartment. The other is about two small-time crooks waiting.

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Cast

Cast overview:
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Ben (segment "The Dumb Waiter")
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Gus (segment "The Dumb Waiter")
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Rose (segment "The Room")
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Mrs. Sands (segment "The Room")
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Mr. Sands (segment "The Room")
David Hemblen ...
Mr. Hudd (segment "The Room")
Abbott Anderson ...
(segment "The Room")
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Mr. Kidd (segment "The Room")
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Storyline

Adaptations of two early plays, The Room and The Dumb Waiter, by Noble Prize-winning, English playwright Harold Pinter. The first revolves around paranoiac woman trapped in her apartment. The other is about two small-time crooks waiting.

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Plot Keywords:

dumbwaiter | based on play | See All (2) »

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Crime | Drama | Mystery

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Release Date:

12 May 1987 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

The Dumb Waiter  »

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Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

One of three films directed by Robert Altman which were first released in the year of 1987. The others were Beyond Therapy (1987) and "Les Boréades" segment of Aria (1987). See more »

Connections

Version of ITV Television Playhouse: The Room (1961) See more »

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User Reviews

Brilliant!
10 August 2001 | by – See all my reviews

I am the first one to SPIT upon....really, I cannot stand pretentious crud -- spit upon art that pretends to be art...

Paintings of green with a yellow spot and selling for $250,000 (seriously), or boring movies and plays that border on insanity...BUT...Pinter's MASterpiece, The Dumb Waiter is indeed an 'absurdist' piece, but one that has a beginning, a middle and an end, and truly carries the viewer (or reader) through a psychological dialogue that ranks with Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil,' and Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner,' as films that take the absurdist and surreal genre and actually make films truly art-worthy.

I love the Dumb Waiter -- and ironically, fell in love with it during a college drama class -- I wrote at length about it because I had been one to rant about stupid wannabe pretentious theatre, art, music, etc. and realized that Pinter is truly an artist. Truly. Other pretenders do minimalistic work because they can't do more, but this is great -- and the best acting Travolta has done besides Pulp Fiction... ...oh, and Battlefield Earth...(just kidding)


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