Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.
Dirk Bogarde
Stephen
Stanley Baker
Charley
Jacqueline Sassard
Anna
Michael York
William
Vivien Merchant
Rosalind
Delphine Seyrig
Francesca
Alexander Knox
Provost
Ann Firbank
Laura
Brian Phelan
Police Sergeant
Terence Rigby
Plain Clothed Policeman
Freddie Jones
Man in Bell's Office
Jill Johnson
Secretary
Jane Hillary
Receptionist
Maxwell Caulfield
Ted
Carole Caplin
Clarissa
Harold Pinter
Bell - TV Producer
Nicholas Mosley
Don Hedges
Steven Easton
Stephen & Rosalind's Baby (uncredited)
Director
Joseph Losey
Novel
Nicholas Mosley
Screenplay
Harold Pinter
February 10, 2023
6
Dirk Bogarde is a philosophy professor at Oxford University - happily married with two children; and another on the way. He has a favourite student - Michael York who is keen on a newcomer; the glamorous Austrian Jacqueline Sassard. They have a Sunday lunch with an additional guest in Stanley Baker - a fellow professor who is struggling with his own marriage; as well as his - envy evoking - television career. It's a sort of intellectual menage-à-trois - Bogarde fancies his Austrian student but she has eyes on both York and Baker... Even the consumption of excesses of booze at the lunch/dinner/supper doesn't inject much into this. It lacks any degree of edginess or depth - but merely provides us with a spotlight on the bored, affected, educational middle-classes that doesn't really shine anything beyond highlighting the shallowness of the characters created by Nicholas Mosley - and not really enhanced much by Harold Pinter.. The performances, especially from Baker, are good but there just isn't enough substance to generate a spark!
Status:
Released
Original Language:
English
Budget:
$600,000.00
Revenue:
$0.00