Rent Accident (1967)
3.6 of 5 from 98 ratings
1h 41min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) is a middle-aged professor at Oxford University. Stifled by his life of marriage and academia, he yearns for an affair with his beautiful and enigmatic student Anna (Jacqueline Sassard). He is locked into a battle for Anna's affection against her fiance, William (Michael York), whose youthful vitality he envies, and with his friend and academic rival Charley (Stanley Baker), whose media profile and sexual success he covets.
- Actors:
- Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Jacqueline Sassard, Michael York, Vivien Merchant, Delphine Seyrig, Alexander Knox, Ann Firbank, Brian Phelan, Terence Rigby, Freddie Jones, Jill Johnson, Jane Hillary, Maxwell Caulfield, Carole Caplin, Harold Pinter, Nicholas Mosley
- Directors:
- Joseph Losey
- Producers:
- Joseph Losey, Norman Priggen
- Writers:
- Nicholas Mosley, Harold Pinter
- Others:
- Carmen Dillon
- Studio:
- Optimum
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- A History of Cricket Films, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 Barnyard Bird Films, Top 10 Tennis Films
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 08/04/2013
- Run Time:
- 106 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Stereo
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Interview with Dirk Bogarde biographer John Coldstream
- Interview with Harold Pinter expert Harry Burton
- Interview with feminist author and academic Melanie Williams
- Interview with film critic Tim Robey
- Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter discuss Accident (1957)
- Talking About Accident Documentary Featuring an Interview with Harold Pinter
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Reviews (3) of Accident
Worth watching but not a masterpiece - Accident review by Philip in Paradiso
This is a good film, and very much a 1960s British film, in its style, atmosphere, concerns, etc. But it is not a masterpiece. There is something a little bit annoying about it, somehow, in my opinion. It is a bit slow at times. There is something circular about it. At the end of the day, not that much happens: boy meets girl, problems arise, accidents happen, professors at university lust after young women, and so on. I enjoyed it but I don't think it is quite as great a classic as some people would have us believe. I still recommend it.
3 out of 4 members found this review helpful.
Haunting - Accident review by sb
FILM & REVIEW During his Hollywood exile Joseph Losey made a series of films in England where he dissected the mores of the English Upper Class with a chilly remote eye. His most famous film is The Servant and here he again re-unites with writer Harold Pinter and actor Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde plays Stephen a austere fastidious Oxford Don living with his wife who is expecting their third child. The film opens with a late night crash where William (York) is killed and his girlfriend Anna (Sassard) survives and who may or not have been driving. The rest of the film takes us up to this point and adds in Charley (Baker) who is a fellow Don with a disintegrating marriage. It’s obvious that Stephen is falling in love in Anna but over a very boozy Sunday ( the amount sunk is colossal) it’s revealed that Charley and Anna are having a long term affair…..that William may or may not know about. Add in Stephen reigniting with an old flame as events become more complicated. It’s very well acted and written - as always with Pinter the dialogue can be elliptical with glacial pauses and quite often it’s not clear that what you are watching is in fact really what is going on. It proves once again that Bogarde was one of the finest actors of his generation and says more in a glance or a tight smile that others would need a lot more dialogue to convey - very good indeed - 4/5
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Another Losey-Bogarde classic. - Accident review by Steve
Cerebral drama written by Harold Pinter with the implicit menace, allusive meaning and expressive silences that we expect from the playwright. It is a slow moving story with a strong evocation of a rural summer, and of the aloof academia that gathers around a pair of ascendant Oxford scholars. A lot of the lifting is done by the lead actors, Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker, who are both superb, and the latter, a revelation. There is an art to making very psychological films so compelling, which might easily be portentous and pretentious. This kind of film making was more often found at this time in France and Italy (Rohmer, Antonioni) but Losey proves himself comfortably equal to the task. It is a taut, haunting and atmospheric film by the best director in sixties UK cinema.
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.