Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed and produced by Joseph Losey, adapted by Harold Pinter from the 1965 novel by Nicholas Mosley. It stars Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, and Jacqueline Sassard, with supporting roles played by Michael York, Vivien Merchant, Delphine Seyrig, and Alexander Knox. In the film, two middle-aged academics find themselves in love triangle with their own student, who is already engaged.

This film is the second of three Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others are The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).Hirsch, 1980 p. 92: “Losey’s three films with Pinter - The Servant, Accident, The Go-Between…” Callahan, 2003: “Harold Pinter, who wrote three screenplays for the director, the first of which was The Servant…” It was also the last of several collaborations between Losey and Stanley Baker.

Accident was released by London Independent Producers on 9 February 1967, and received generally positive reviews.Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 162: FilmographyHirsch, 1980 p. 239: FilmographyHirsch, 1980 p. 92: “Accident is the most subdued of the trio, a miniaturist examination of middle-aged malaise.”Gardner, 2001: “Losey's best film, Accident (1967).” At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, it won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It was nominated for four BAFTA Awards, including Best British Film and Best British Screenplay.

Plot During the hours of darkness, a car crashes. A man, Stephen, goes to it and finds a young man dead and a shocked but uninjured young woman whom he lifts from the car and takes back to his nearby house. The film then goes into flashback.

Stephen, a married Oxford tutor in his forties, has two students: the rich and likeable William, of whom he is fond, and a beautiful, enigmatic Austrian named Anna, whom he secretly desires. William also fancies Anna and hopes to know her better. While Stephen's wife is away having their third child, he looks up an old flame in London and they have sex. Returning home, he finds that his pushy colleague Charley has been using the house for sex with Anna. She tells Stephen privately that she and William are engaged to be married.

William says that he will go to Stephen's house after a party that night. As he is too drunk to drive, Anna takes the wheel, but she crashes the car outside Stephen's gate. Upon finding the accident and William dead, Stephen pulls the deeply shaken Anna from the wreckage and hides her upstairs while he calls the police. Later, he rapes her while she is still in shock, then takes her back to her room at the university. He comes by in the morning to find a bemused Charley, who cannot prevent Anna from packing to return to Austria.Hirsch, 1980 p. 52: On the story as a “flashback” And pp. 113-115: Plot summary.Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 67: Plot sketch

Cast

Losey makes a cameo appearance in the film, and Pinter has a brief speaking role as the television producer, Mr. Bell.Maris, 2012: “Losey and Pinter, in fact, briefly appear in the movie, the latter as a cynical television producer.”

Reception

Box office The film performed poorly at the box office.Brandum, 2017: Accident a “financial failure…” In 1973, Losey said the film was "officially in bankruptcy."

Initial critical response In his review upon the film's release, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called Accident "a sad little story of a wistful don ... neither strong drama nor stinging satire."

Responding to criticism that the film's meaning was difficult to discern, Stanley Baker said: "It's obvious what Accident meant ... It meant what was shown on the screen." Of Joseph Losey's direction, Baker said: "One of Joe's problems is that he tends to wrap things up too much for himself. I think that 75% of the audience didn't realise that Accident was a flashback."

On Rotten Tomatoes, Accident holds a rating of 76% from 29 reviews.

Awards and nominations +InstitutionYearCategoryNomineeResultRef.Belgian Film Critics Association1968Grand PrixBritish Academy Film Awards1968Best British FilmJoseph LoseyBest British ScreenplayHarold PinterBest British ActorDirk BogardeBest British Art Direction (Colour)Carmen DillonCannes Film Festival1967Palme d'OrJoseph LoseyGrand Prix Spécial du JuryGolden Globe Awards1968Best English-Language Foreign FilmNational Board of Review1967Top Ten FilmsNational Society of Film Critics1968 Best Supporting ActressVivien MerchantSant Jordi Awards1968Best Performance in a Foreign FilmDirk BogardeWriters' Guild of Great Britain1968Best British ScreenplayHarold PinterMerit Scroll

Retrospective appraisal Perhaps the most celebrated sequence in the movie, comprising 25 minutes of the 105 minute film, is set at Stephen and Rosalind's home on a Sunday afternoon. Anna and William are the invited guests, but Charley intrudes on the company unexpectedly.Callahan, 2003: "Accident (1967)...revered by many critics…" A tennis doubles match is arranged—Stephen and Charley vs. William and Anna—in which Losey reveals, cinematically, the undercurrents of sexual tension among the three men.Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 76Hirsch, 1980 p. 114: All three men "infatuated" with Anna.Brandum, 2017: "Accident (1967)'s dysfunctional masculinity…" Film critic Robert Maris writes:

Film critics James Palmer and Michael Riley cite the dialogue from the "deceptively casual, languid scene on the lawn" which follows the tennis match, serving as "a paradigm of reflexive storytelling."Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 76, p. 77: "...the scene is resonant with ironies generated by and withheld from various characters."

Charley, Stephen's academic colleague, challenges literature student William to create an omniscient narrative for characters in a novel, based on those attending the gathering:

Film critic Dan Callahan at Senses of Cinema registers this assessment of Losey's second film collaboration with playwright Harold Pinter:

Footnotes

Sources Brandum, Dean. 2017. Accident (Joseph Losey, 1967). Senses of Cinema, March 2017 Love Letters: 1967 Issue 82. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/1967/accident-joseph-losey/nt Accessed 10 November, 2024. Callahan, Dan. 2003. Losey, Joseph. Senses of Cinema, March 2003. Great Directors Issue 25.https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/greatdirectors/losey/#:~:text=The%20dominant%20themes%20of%20Losey's,love%20story%20in%20his%20films. Accessed 12 October, 2024. Gardner, Geoff. 2001. Unkind Cuts: Joseph Losey’s Eve. Senses of Cinema, December 2001. Underrated and Overlooked, Issue 18. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/underrated-and-overlooked/losey_eve/ Accessed 12 November, 2024. Hirsch, Foster. 1980. Joseph Losey. Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. Maras, Robert. 2012. Dissecting class relations: The film collaborations of Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter. World Socialist Web Site, May 28, 2012. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/05/lose-m28.html Accessed 12 October, 2024. Palmer, James and Riley, Michael. 1993. The Films of Joseph Losey. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. Walsh, David. 2009. Questions and answers on the Hollywood blacklists—Part 2: An interview with film historian Reynold Humphries. World Socialist Web Site, March 12, 2009.https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/03/hum2-m12.html Accessed 10 October, 2024.

Further reading Billington, Michael (2007) Harold Pinter. London: Faber and Faber, (13) Billington, Michael (1996) The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. London: Faber and Faber, (10) Gale, Steven H. (2003) Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process, Lexington, Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, (10) (13) Gale, Steven H. (2001) The Films of Harold Pinter. Albany: SUNY P

External links

Accident at AllMovie

"Films by Harold Pinter: Accident 1966" – At HaroldPinter.org: The Official Website of the International Playwright Harold Pinter. "Harold Pinter & Joseph Losey", by Jamie Andrews, Harold Pinter Archive Blog, British Library, 15 June 2009. Accident at BFI Screenonline Accident locations at Reelstreets