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Soho Bites Podcast

Soho Bites 50: Bartleby (1970)

March 6 · 1 hr 15 min · Episode 50 · 108.2 MB
0:00-1:15:08

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I would prefer not to.

Based on “Bartleby the Scrivener - A Story of Wall Street”, a short story by Herman Melville, Bartleby (1970) is the story of a young man at odds with the world in which he finds himself. He starts work as an audit clerk at an accountancy firm but within a few days begins to refuse to do any work, saying merely that he “would prefer not to”.

Starring John McEnery in the title role and Paul Scofield as his extremely patient boss, the film is the only feature to be directed by Anthony Friedman.

Stephen Armstrong, journalist at The Observer and freelance film critic joins us to talk about the film.

In popular culture, Bartleby has become a symbol of passive resistance to corporate bureaucracy. Among many other things, Bartleby’s famous line “I would prefer not to” has become a:


In Herman Melville’s original story, he mentions the names of two real life people - John C Colt & Samuel Adams. Little heard of today, they would have been extremely famous at the time due to a notorious murder which gripped the United States. We tell the story of this case in the first half.

Read or listen to Stephen Armstrong’s work at the Observer and find his books here. Stephen also produces an extremely Soho podcast called Strippers in the Attic.

The director of Bartleby, Anthony Freidman, did not direct any other feature films and went back to academia.

See the Bartleby locations thanks to our friends at ReelStreets.

Buy the Blu-ray from Indicator Films.

The New York Sun published this special edition all about the John C Colt / Samuel Adams case in January 1842.

Most of the information about the Colt / Adams case came from two books by Andie Tucher and Harold Schechter.

The Bartleby sound track, composed by Roger Webb, was released by Trunk Records on vinyl. It’s also available on Spotify.

Troy Taylor provided the voice of John C Colt. Check out his website, his podcast and his Museum of American Oddities on Facebook.

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