Accident (1967)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Joseph Losey

Writers:

Nicholas Mosley (novel)
Harold Pinter (writer)

Release Date:

22 June 1967 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama | Crime

Plot:

Stephen is a married Oxford professor experiencing the pangs of a mid-life crisis as he begins to bristle...

Plot Keywords:

Professor | Oxford | Seduction | Car Accident | Teacher Student Relationship

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Dirk Bogarde	...	Stephen
Stanley Baker	...	Charley
Jacqueline Sassard	...	Anna
Michael York	...	William
Vivien Merchant	...	Rosalind
Delphine Seyrig	...	Francesca
Alexander Knox	...	College Provost
Ann Firbank	...	Laura
Brian Phelan	...	Police Sergeant
Terence Rigby	...	Plainclothes Policeman
Freddie Jones	...	Man in Bell's Office
Jill Johnson	...	Secretary
Jane Hillary	...	Receptionist
Maxwell Findlater	...	Ted
Carole Caplin	...	Clarissa

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Canterbury Quad, St. John's College, St Giles', Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Royal Avenue Chelsea

Trivia:

Barry Justice was on the list of possibles for William.

Quotes:

Charley: [reading from learned journal] A statistical analysis of sexual intercourse at Kolenzo University, Milwaukee showed... that 70% did it in the evening, 29.9% between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and 0.1% during a lecture on Aristotle.
Aged Professor: I'm surprised to hear that Aristotle is on the syllabus in the State of Wisconsin.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Le samouraï (1967)

The best of the 3 Losey-Pinter collaborations

Following their work on "The Servant" (1963) and before the more well-known, "The Go-Between" (1971), "Accident" can be seen as the best - certainly the most understated - of the collaborations between the English playwright, Harold Pinter, and the expatriate American director, Joseph Losey, who had lived and worked in London for some years.

As Pinter said in a 1966 interview: "So in this film everything is buried, it is implicit. There is really very little dialogue, and that is mostly trivial, meaningless. The drama goes on inside the characters." In the published screenplay his directions for one scene indicate that "the words are fragments of realistic conversation. They are not thoughts..." and what comes across is the brilliant contrast between the nondescript, mundane, day-to-day attempts at communication between the characters combined with a hard look at the underlying reality of the characters' situations. Nothing is like it seems to be.

If you like the work of Harold Pinter, this rarely-available film, is a brilliant addition. See it in combination with the other two to get a full picture of what Losey and Pinter achieved. I've seen the films at least 10 times each and they formed the basis of my 1974 MA thesis on the Pinter-Losey collaboration.