The Guest is a filmed adaptation of the Harold Pinter play of the same name. Donald Pleasence plays a laconic tramp, who is invited to stay in the home of Robert Shaw, on the implied promise that he, Pleasence, will be hired as caretaker. Shaw's off-in-the-coop brother Alan Bates is delighted to have Pleasence around...to "play" with. In the manner of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Shaw and Bates uses Pleasence as a punching bag for their own hang-ups. Photographed with the proper degree of claustrophobia by Nicolas Roeg, The Caretaker was independently produced by a celebrity consortium including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Sellers, and Noel Coward.