Accident ***** (1967, Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Michael York, Jacqueline Sassard) – Classic Movie Review 1,768

Dirk Bogarde is on his finest form, ideally cast as an Oxford University professor having a mid-life crisis, in Joseph Losey’s 1967 British drama film Accident.

Filmed in the summer of 1966 and released in February 1967, Accident is a subtle masterpiece of understated film-making, and one of the important fruits of the classic four-film partnership between American director Joseph Losey and British star Dirk Bogarde. It is second only to The Servant in rich achievement.

Bogarde is on his finest form, ideally cast as a restless, middle-aged Oxford University philosophy professor, who is married to dismissive Rosalind (Vivien Merchant), but is having a mid-life crisis, feeling stifled by his surroundings and especially the folk around him. Then he meets and falls for Anna von Graz, a beautiful, enigmatic Austrian student engaged to another one of his students, the rich and likeable athletic aristocrat William (Michael York), and his existence springs to life.

[Spoiler alert] After Stephen has been away in London sleeping with an old flame, he returns to find his pushy Oxford professor colleague Charley (Stanley Baker), who has his own TV show, has used his house for sex with Anna. But now Stephen reflects on the events that led up to William’s tragic death in the car accident of the title with Anna at the wheel.

A very typical, subtle and enigmatic screenplay from Harold Pinter takes an expectedly chilly and intellectual approach to the events in Nicholas Mosley’s 1965 source novel. But Pinter also brings warmth and soul to the story by ensuring that the character studies are riveting, especially as interpreted by these choice actors. The film belongs to Bogarde, but real-life Oxford student York is outstanding in his first major film role after his debut as Lucentio in Franco Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew (also 1967) .

It is ironic but somehow satisfying that it took an outsider like Losey to capture Oxford and the middle-class English exactly right.

Nominated for four 1968 Bafta awards and a Golden Globe as Best English-Language Foreign Film, the film shared the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes in 1967 (shared with the forgotten I Even Met Happy Gypsies).

Delphine Seyrig (who shot her scenes in a day and a half), Alexander Knox, Ann Firbank, Freddie Jones, Terence Rigby and Brian Phelan co-star. Pinter (in a brief speaking role as TV producer Bell) and Mosley (as Don Hedges) and Losey have cameos. Maxwell Caulfield (aged 8) is billed as Maxwell Findlater, playing Ted in his film debut.

It is filmed at various telling Oxford locations, including St Edmund Hall college library, St John’s College, Magdalen College and the cricket pitch at Magdalen. It is also filmed at Syon House, Syon Park, Brentford, Middlesex, Norwood Farm Hall, Elveden Road, Cobham, Surrey, and in London.

The film performed poorly at the box office, and Losey said it was ‘officially in bankruptcy’ by 1973. On a budget of nearly £300, 000, it took only £40,010 at the UK box office and £95,153 worldwide.

The British Film Institute restored the film in 2009 to celebrate the centenary of Joseph Losey.

It is Pinter’s second of three collaborations with Losey, following The Servant (1963) and preceding The Go-Between (1971).

Vivien Merchant was married to Harold Pinter, appearing in many of his works. They divorced in 1980 and she died on October 3 1982. Pinter died on December 24 2008, aged 78.

Losey lived in Royal Avenue Chelsea, London, and the film is made by Royal Avenue Chelsea Productions.

The cast

The cast are Dirk Bogarde as Stephen, Stanley Baker as Charley, Jacqueline Sassard as Anna, Michael York as William, Vivien Merchant as Stephen’s wife Rosalind, Alexander Knox as University Provost, Delphine Seyrig as provost’s daughter Francesca, Ann Firbank as Laura, Brian Phelan as Police Sergeant, Terence Rigby as Plainclothes policeman, Freddie Jones as Man in Bell’s office, Maxwell Caulfield (credited as Maxwell Findlater) as Ted, Carole Caplin as Clarissa, Harold Pinter as Bell, Nicholas Mosley as Don Hedges, and Steven Easton as Baby.

Maxwell Caulfield was born Maxwell Newby on 23 November 1959. His parents had parted by 1965, and his mother legally abandoned the surname Newby in favour of her maiden name Oriole Rosalind Findlater. Caulfield has been married since 1980 to actress Juliet Mills,

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,768

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